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1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA
(House of Representatives - May 15, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H2697-H2775] 1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 149 and rule [[Page H2698]] XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1469. {time} 1244 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 1469) making emergency supplemental appropriations for recovery from natural disasters, and for overseas peacekeeping efforts, including those in Bosnia, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Combest in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. {time} 1245 Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to present to the House the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental bill, H.R. 1469, and I hope that the spirit of bipartisanship that has embraced the budget negotiations will carry forward on this emergency appropriations bill. This is the first bill the Committee on Appropriations has presented to the 105th Congress, and I look forward to a very productive year as we move 13 appropriations measures forward. The bill, as reported, proposes $8.4 billion in new spending authority, fully offset, and I stress offset, by the rescission of previously appropriated funds and by including other offsets. Again, I say this bill is fully offset in budget authority. The supplemental bill before us provides the following major items: For disaster recovery we provide $5.509 billion; for miscellaneous appropriations we provide $113 million; and then we offset that spending with $5.622 billion of rescissions. In peacekeeping, in Bosnia and other areas, we repay the Pentagon for what they have already spent, $2.039 billion, and we offset that with rescissions of funds previously made to the Pentagon of $2.040 billion. Mandatory appropriations are included here as well in a third category, mostly for the veterans' pension benefits and other benefits for a total of $757 million. At the beginning of the 104th Congress, Republicans began a policy of paying for supplementals by rescissions of previously appropriated funds. I am very proud to say that, once again, the bill reported by the committee complies with this policy and is totally offset in budget authority. We have had to look far and wide for offsets to pay for this disaster recovery bill, as well as our international commitments in Bosnia, but I would hope that all of our colleagues would recognize the true national scope of this appropriations bill, and that finding different or substitute offsets of any major scope is nearly impossible this late in the fiscal year which began on October 1, 1996. Mr. Chairman, my objective is to get the disaster recovery money to the people who need it and to restore our national security funding to keep our troops safe and secure on the ground in Bosnia. Flood victims in some 35 States badly need the money in this bill. In addition, our troops in Bosnia and those men and women who have served our country in various wars are looking to us to pass this bill quickly as a sign of our support for them. So Mr. Chairman, the bill reported by the committee is an excellent disaster supplemental appropriations bill. It is one which enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, and there are now several amendments that, if adopted, could cause this bill to be vetoed. We are going to speak to them at the appropriate time, but I hope that the Members would understand that it is important that we get this bill on the President's desk and signed into law before we adjourn for the Memorial Day recess. So I hope that we will keep the bill clean and noncontroversial and that we will get it passed, conferenced with the Senate and signed into law as quickly as possible, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, at this point in the Record I would like to insert a table reflecting the programs and amounts in this bill, as reported. [[Page H2699]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.000 [[Page H2700]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.001 [[Page H2701]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.002 [[Page H2702]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.003 [[Page H2703]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.004 [[Page H2704]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.005 [[Page H2705]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.006 [[Page H2706]] Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I am in the happy position of being able to say that at least as of this moment, unless we have amendments adopted that change the situation, I think we are at a point where we can have bipartisan support for this bill. I hope it remains that way. I would like to simply raise one concern I have about the Thune amendment. I had hoped that Mr. Thune would be on the floor. I had asked him to be here. I do not see him at this moment, but let me simply, because we will not have time on the Thune amendment, let me raise some concerns about it now. As the Chair of the committee understands, on the Democratic side of the aisle we were concerned about the committee decision not to provide community development block grant funding for the Dakota floods. We had urged that they do so. The decision was made by the majority party to withhold judgment on whether or not there ought to be any CDBG funding provided, and we respected that. Now I am happy to see that there will be an amendment offered, and I do not expect to object to it when it is offered today by the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune]. I know that the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] and others are very concerned that that amendment pass, but I must say that there are some problems with that amendment that I believe are going to have to be fixed in conference. First of all, as I understand it, the amendment attempts to fund $500 million in CDBG money by reducing the $1.2 billion contained in the original FEMA money to $700 million, which leaves FEMA with a very tight budget. I am concerned about the robbing Peter to pay Paul, the result that that might produce. I am also concerned that that amendment would run the risk of limiting the Federal response and delaying victims from receiving much-needed assistance through the regular FEMA account. In the Senate, the $500 million was added without reducing FEMA's disaster fund account, and I had hoped that we would be able to simply adopt that approach. I think it would be useful if we could do that in conference. I would also note that I am concerned because the gentleman's amendment apparently seeks to make permanent changes in law which would force the Secretary of HUD to waive the requirement that HUD's disaster assistance benefit only low- and moderate-income persons. I am also concerned about why it is necessary to force the Secretary to waive the requirement to hold local public hearings. I am also concerned that it appears to be the intent of the gentleman's amendment to allow HUD to make grants, not loans, to privately owned, for-profit utilities. I am actually unsure about what his intention is in that regard, and I would simply make this point: It has been Government policy that CDBG funds can be used to assist businesses damaged by disasters, to the extent that such businesses are declined loans by the Small Business Administration or because they need assistance above the SBA loan limits, and I am curious as to whether or not it is the intent of the gentleman in that amendment to change that long-standing practice. I hope that he can respond to those questions between now and the time that we deal with this in conference, because everyone wants to see this amendment go forward, but we want to see it go forward in the right way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the Thune amendment is an attempt to provide maximum flexibility to the people who have suffered such devastation in the Dakotas and in Minnesota as a result of the flood. There was some concern that because the flooding was so extensive and had been on the ground for such a long period of time, that certain businesses and certain people who live in houses in that flood zone either would not come back or should not come back, and it has been hard to get a handle on exactly what should be done and whether or not the Federal Government, within the confines and restrictions of current law affecting FEMA, has the flexibility to deal with those questions. To his credit, the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] is attempting I think to answer some of those questions. Others in this Chamber, both on the Republican and the Democrat side, both the majority and minority side, have had different ideas on how to provide that flexibility, and I think this is an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process, so that we can talk it out and by the time we get to conference, hopefully we will provide the maximum amount of flexibility that really does help the people that need help, but without simply throwing the money at the problem and wasting taxpayers' dollars. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I understand the gentleman's comments and agree with them. We do want to provide whatever amount is necessary through the CDBG process to enable them to meet their problems. We do also, because of our responsibility to the taxpayers and to other potential recipients from FEMA, want to make certain that in the process we do not hurt FEMA's ability to deliver aid. We also want to make certain that we do not unnecessarily make permanent changes in law that might come back to haunt us. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding time to me, and I hope I can do it in 2 minutes. I want to commend the gentleman. I do want to say I was very disappointed, though, that the leadership in the Committee on rules chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency Supplemental appropriations will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit, and I would have hoped, knowing that the gentleman has done such a good job and the committee did such a good job of offsetting it, that that would have been protected. I just thought it was a given, because we have been committed to making sure that all of this is offset. Second, and I have so much here, I would just submit it all for the Record, but I would say that I am concerned that the senate has added much more money in to this for highway spending to donor States, far beyond what the President or anybody else has even suggested that should be in. We wanted a bill that was totally offset, and now they have added so much more. Third, as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows, and I would hope that we can resolve this matter, they have also basically put earmarking back in. This House, on both sides of the aisle, did away with earmarking. Some people call them pork projects, some people call them highway demonstration projects, others call them whatever they want to. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional highway aid funds in fiscal year 1997 and the State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. The House is well aware that we have gotten rid of these things, so therefore the other body has put in more money, well beyond what the President wanted, and at the very time both bodies are meeting, the budget committees are meeting, everyone is taking credit for reaching a balanced budget in the year 2002, yet we put more money into this than the President asked or anybody else asked for. So I hope as we get to conference both of these issues will be resolved. Lastly, this is not the place to rewrite ISTEA. The place to rewrite ISTEA is in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this year. I again want to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for his outstanding job, and just hope that we can make sure this money is offset when we go back to committee. [[Page H2707]] I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for yielding me a few minutes so that I might discuss a few of the items in the Transportation Subcommittee's jurisdiction. First, the chairman of the full committee needs to be congratulated for the yeoman's work that he has done in crafting this bill--an $8.4 billion emergency supplemental bill that is fully offset. That was no easy task. He has been forced to make some difficult decisions and has done a commendable job under equally difficult circumstances. I am disappointed, however, that the leadership and the Rules Committee chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit. This action is disturbing and painful. In the area of transportation, the emergency supplemental bill includes $650 million in emergency highway program funds, $40 million for the FAA to procure additional explosive detection equipment, $22 million for the National Transportation Safety Board, and $10 million for emergency railroad rehabilitation. These funds are needed desperately to respond to the devastating floods that occurred throughout our country this spring and to ensure safety in our skies. The bill also includes $318 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. These funds were requested by the President and are intended to compensate those States that were given an expectation of what they would receive--a false expectation, based on an arithmetic error by the Treasury Department--which they then calculated into their State highway fund. The committee has been responsible and diligent in responding to the needs of the people in the flooded areas while being mindful of the desire of the American people to balance the budget and to offset this additional spending. I am concerned, however, that the other body has gone much further than is necessary or warranted. I want to alert my colleagues to the other body's actions on its version of the supplemental bill-- particularly with respect to two troubling issues. These issues have the potential to delay unnecessarily the emergency funding contained in this bill. The other body has provided a total of $933 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. Of this amount, $457 million was added to address the Treasury error that I alluded to earlier in my remarks. Moreover, the other body has provided almost a half a billion dollars more in additional fiscal year 1997 Federal-aid highway spending. This spending was not requested by the President and is not necessary as an emergency requirement. This funding has nothing to do with the arithmetic error. It has to do with providing a hold-harmless provision to donee States to address what the donee States now see as a problem in the highway authorization act of 1991. That act, ISTEA, contained a provision for donor States--those States that had traditionally received back substantially less than they had contributed to the highway trust-fund--that in the last year of the 6 years of ISTEA authorization, which is this year, there would be inserted a 90-percent floor. That is, no State would get back less than 90 percent of what it contributed to the highway fund. The 90-percent standard has been the holy grail of those States that have gotten less back than they have contributed to the fund. This program, the 90 percent of payments program, was part of the common understanding of the Congress and the States when President Bush signed the bill in 1991. It was the understanding of the donee States. It is now the law of the land. Well, now the donee States want more--more than what they have received in excess of their contributions over the last 6 years, more than what they would get under current law, more that what they are entitled to under ISTEA. The donee States would get a half a billion dollars more from the other body. This is not fair to the donor States. While the majority of the other body is represented by donee, States, the overwhelming majority of this House is elected from donor States. Mr. Chairman, this urgent supplemental appropriations bill is not the place--nor is it the time--to debate the donor/donee States issue. The reauthorization of ISTEA is the proper and appropriate legislation to debate this divisive issue. In addition to this item, the other body has taken the unprecedented step of earmarking seven highway demonstration projects from the funds provided to the States under the regular Federal-aid highway program. Rather than provide additional highway funds to the States without strings attached or to earmark funds in excess of the regular Federal- aid highway program for specific projects, as has been the norm, the other body directs certain States to spend a portion--and in some cases all--of their Federal-aid highway fund on specific highway demonstration projects. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional Federal-aid highway funds in fiscal year 1997. The State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. Now, under the provisions of the Senate's bill, the State of Alabama either uses its Federal-aid highway funds on this one particular project by the end of September, or it loses all of it. The State is afforded no elasticity as they have under current law. The process advocated by the other body will significantly change the manner in which the Federal Highway Administration manages the Federal- aid highway program. It will also impact each of the States' ability to fund the projects of greatest need. And it eliminates the flexibility afforded the States and local units of government under current law to determine what project or program is best for them. This process undermines the planning process established by ISTEA and forces the States to give a higher priority on these projects than on other potentially more worthy projects. The House is well aware of our position on the earmarking of highway demonstration projects. As a result of not earmarking highway demonstration projects, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation has been able to increase the Federal-aid highway program by almost $1 billion. In doing so, we have allowed the States and people at the local level to determine the appropriate use of these funds--not people here in Washington in their ivory towers. These issues are surely to be contentious in conference and I felt compelled to inform my colleagues at this stage of the process. I am afraid that a protracted debate on Federal-aid highway formulas and the underlying donor/donee State problem as well as the earmarking highway demonstration projects will delay the necessary funding to respond to the devastating floods that occurred this spring. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson]. (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1300 Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, because it contains very important money for our region for the disaster that we just went through, a disaster like we have never seen in 500 years in Minnesota. In East Grand Forks, pictured here, in Breckenridge, in Ada, in Warren, and all the rural communities along the Red River, we were under water. Nobody can remember anything like this. We had snowstorms, ice storms, and then, last, the flood of 1997. There is the city of East Grand Forks, a town of 9,000 people, that got hit probably the hardest of any community in this flood. Everyone, the entire town was under water. It had to be evacuated because the water kept rising. In the end it just could not be stopped. Every street, every home, every business went under water, and the water did not go down for 2 weeks. In true Minnesota style, the people of Crookston, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, Bemidji, and many other communities opened their doors and provided shelter and people to help us get through, and to help the people driven out by the floods. Now, although the water has receded, the damage and desolation that is everywhere is reminiscent of a nuclear blast. There are no children playing, and life is now just returning to normal. There is garbage and debris every place you look. People's entire lives are sitting on the berms waiting to be scooped up by payloaders. East Grand Forks has lost four of their six schools, [[Page H2708]] their city hall, their library, and neighborhood after neighborhood. Thirty-five to forty percent of this community is going to have to be rebuilt and moved to another part of the area so we do not do this again. Mr. Chairman, in all of the flood-ravaged communities in the Red River Valley, the challenge now is to rebuild. On behalf of all of the Minnesotans in the Seventh District, I want to thank the President, the Vice President, the Speaker, the majority leader and other Members who came out to look at the damage for themselves, and thank them for all the help they have given us to get to this point. The work of FEMA and the director, James Lee Witt, have been outstanding. I want to thank each and every one of the agency personnel who have been out in the Seventh District helping our people and communities get back on their feet. I also want to thank the National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and the mayors. I thank them and I encourage everyone to support this bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill. I would like to urge our colleagues to do everything possible to expedite this bill. The money for the Department of Defense that we provide in this bill is offset from the Department of Defense budget. There is no new money here. It is basically a transfer within the department's funding. But if we cannot get this done expeditiously, the operation and maintenance accounts, the training accounts for all of the services, are going to be severely affected. I just urge our colleagues, however they intend to vote on the bill, help us expedite the consideration of this bill so we do not have to stand down any flight training or stand down any training on the part of any of the services, or affect any of the operations and maintenance, because that is what will happen if we do not get this funding resolution, this supplemental appropriations bills, through here quickly. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes]. (Mr. REYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today, but it was ruled not germane to the bill. The amendment would have provided for displaced workers affected by NAFTA, which I believe qualify for disaster relief. I appreciate the opportunity to enter my remarks, written remarks, into the Record. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today but I've been told that, under the rule, my amendment is not germane so I'm not going to offer it but I would like to tell my colleagues about it. Last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy article about workers who have been dislocated by NAFTA. The dateline on the story was El Paso, TX, which I represent. Mr. Chairman, during the first 2\1/2\ years of NAFTA, Texas had almost 8,000 certified job losses as a result of NAFTA. More than half of those dislocated workers were in El Paso. Under current law, after these workers exhaust their unemployment compensation, they are entitled to cash benefits for 52 weeks while they are retraining. Many of these workers have exhausted those cash benefits and they are still jobless. My amendment would have appropriated an additional $10 million for these workers and extend their eligibility for benefits an additional 6 months. My amendment would also have appropriated an additional $1.6 million for the retraining programs, which would bring the appropriation up to $30 million, the maximum amount authorized. Today we're considering a supplemental appropriations bill primarily for disaster relief. As far as I'm concerned, these dislocated workers need disaster relief, too. Unfortunately, under this rule, we're not going to be able to help them. Mr. Chairman, we have an obligation to these workers and I will be on this floor every chance I get to speak on their behalf. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy]. Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I thank very, very sincerely the Committee on Appropriations chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for their assistance in working up an appropriate disaster relief proposal, formed as the Thune amendment. Mr. Chairman, what we have in North Dakota is an absolute disaster, the dimensions of which we have never experienced before. Grand Forks, ND, second largest town in the State, A town of 50,000, was under water, and the consequences of it are absolutely devastating for the businesses and the homeowners that reside there. What we are finding as we begin tackling the rebuilding component of this is the additional needs that are simply not met with the existing programs. For example, we literally have hundreds of homes in the floodway, a floodway that is proposed to be razed, and a permanent dike established so we do not have this problem ever again. These individuals need to know right now whether or not funds will be available on a home buyout proposal so they might have the means to build on higher ground while the city's enhanced flood protection program moves forward. The Thune amendment allows this to happen by transferring funds from FEMA into the Community Development Block Grant, to be more flexibly applied to the unique needs that this situation presents. The CDBG funds in the Thune amendment are not exclusively for the area, and other areas that have had disasters may also access these funds to augment the existing structure of disaster relief programs. What we have seen with the Thune amendment is a bipartisan response to a truly national disaster. President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Armey, all have visited the area. The gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] have worked at great length putting this together. Please support the Thune amendment and the bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kentucky [Mrs. Northup], a new and valued member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Disaster Recovery Act of 1997, which will get money needed as a result of the floods to Kentucky residents. I am sorry for so many of the people that suffered in my community because of this extraordinary flood that occurred this spring. We had 12 inches of rain in 1 day. We had flash flooding, and then a major flood when the river overflowed as it drained off and the river flooded. This flood was the worst since 1964. There is no amount of personal insurance, of personal precautions, that would prepare a person or a community for this size flood. It is in this bill where we reach out to those people who were struck so badly. My constituents have said this is when Government should become involved in citizens' lives, when Government is truly the last resort for assistance. It is a bill which will help many States and citizens, and it was developed in a teamwork approach. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I hope the President will listen to the needs of my constituents from Kentucky, Arkansas, and throughout the Nation, and please, sign this bill. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi]. Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I commend the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and our ranking member for their hard work to bring this legislation to the floor. When natural disaster strikes, the people of our country have a right to have a response from us, and a response that is quick and appropriate. That is why I hope that we can do that with this legislation, and why it is hard to understand why anyone would want to throw up an obstacle to the very quickest response to the needs of the American people. That obstacle is in the form, in this legislation, of having in order the Gekas amendment. President Clinton has rightfully said that if the Gekas [[Page H2709]] amendment is included in this bill, that he would veto the bill. So I urge my colleagues, when it comes time to vote on the Gekas amendment, to vote against it. Who wins under the Gekas amendment? I think just the House Republicans, because this month's balanced budget agreement includes several new investments in education and other priorities for American families, but Republicans are hoping they can ignore those bipartisan commitments by ramming through this amendment, which would allow them to impose automatic $25 billion cuts in education and other priorities. If the Gekas amendment passes today, here is what could happen: 86,000 fewer children would be enrolled in Head Start, 360,000 fewer students would receive Pell grants for college or job training, 31,000 fewer students would get college work study jobs. If you are a veteran you should be concerned, because 60,000 veterans could be denied medical care, 66,000 people would lose job training and job placement. The list goes on and on. If you are concerned about the environment, the cleanup of 900 toxic waste sites could be delayed, 500,000 fewer at-risk pregnant women and children would get milk, cereal, and other foods. We will be debating that under the WIC provision that our colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], is proposing. It is hard to understand how the Republican majority rejected the WIC funding. It is hard to understand why they would allow the Gekas amendment to stand in the way of the quickest possible aid to people suffering from disaster in America. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Quinn]. Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the amendment today. Our amendment adds $38 million to the supplemental food program for nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, infants, and children under the age of 5. We propose to take unused dollars from a NASA wind tunnel project to offset the cost of the additional dollars. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the interest from Members on both sides of the aisle. If we do not include these funds, 180,000 women, infants, and children will be removed from the program. Because of an increased need, food price inflation, along with an underestimated caseload for fiscal year 1997, a serious reduction of women, infants, and children served through the WIC Program this year is inescapable. The WIC participation for 1996 fiscal year exceeded the initial projection by 100,000 women, infants, and children. Innocent children are facing unique and challenging circumstances at this time. We should be there to help them. For instance, the flooding in North Dakota has caused 3,000 additional caseloads with the WIC Program. There has been some controversy surrounding our request for these additional funds, there is no question. However, if we cannot continue to serve these people who need our help, who are experiencing temporary difficulty with maintaining a healthful diet at their most critical time of growth and development, if we cannot do this, we are essentially cutting the program. WIC is a well-managed program that would put these additional dollars, I believe and others believe, to efficient use. In fact, it includes the most successful cost-containment system of any Federal health-related program. We all know, and it has been justified, it has been talked about, that for every dollar WIC spends on prenatal care, we save $3.50 spent on Medicaid. WIC is one Federal program that I believe and others do that is truly deserving, and it delivers what it promises to the American taxpayer. Medical evidence shows that the WIC Program reduces low birthweight, infant mortality, and child anemia. This amendment is proof that we can do what we want when we work from both sides of the aisle. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding me the time, and also the chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. Mr. Chairman, I stand to lend my support to the bill as reported by the committee, and I want to thank them for their skill and sensitivity in bringing this before the floor. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Clay Shaw, and the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Patrick Kennedy, our amendment, which has been allowed as a part of this particular exercise here this morning, it takes through the fiscal year the cutoff of SSI income and Medicaid checks to legal immigrants, including refugees and asylees. This delay will give Congress a chance, Mr. Chairman, to agree on a permanent solution to help and assist these vulnerable people. Our amendment provides an offsetting rescission in budget authority that will allow us to do this, so that when Congress takes its recess, these very worthy legal immigrants will continue to receive their benefits. Our amendment, which they have been so helpful in letting us offer this morning, is identical to the one that has already been passed by the Senate on May 7. We all know that the Social Security Administration has sent out over 800,000 letters to people letting them know they may or may not have a cutoff of their benefits. We know they have let them know, and this has caused quite a bit of consternation with the many people who received them. But now, because of the sensitivity of this Congress and because of this supplemental bill, we will hopefully, with our amendment, be allowed to help these people. This cutoff was required by the welfare law that was enacted last year. SSI checks, as we know, they go to needy people, they go to aged and frail people and disabled people. They are the most vulnerable people in our society. These people, most of them are over 64 years of age, blind or disabled, and certainly this Congress does not want to see their SSI cut off. We want to thank this Congress, Mr. Chairman, for this wonderful act. {time} 1315 Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds. I would simply like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Florida. The history of this provision is that when we first marked up the supplemental in the Committee on Appropriations, the gentlewoman from Florida tried to offer an amendment which would have provided for a long-term extension of the restoration of the benefits that this amendment covers. She understood fully that it was not the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations, and she understood why the gentleman from Louisiana and I had to oppose that amendment. But she then offered this amendment in committee which would provide in essence for a 1-month bridge so that we would not have people lose their benefits in August, be out of benefits for a month, only to then have them resume if the budget agreement passes which restores these benefits. So she agreed to withhold offering that amendment in committee, so long as her right to offer this amendment was protected on the floor, as in fact now has occurred. I simply want to say that this is the responsible way to approach this problem. It would be ludicrous for these people to be bounced off the rolls for one month and then go back on. I appreciate her commitment on the issue. That is why this matter is before us today. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I agree with everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin has just said but would add that this amendment became necessary because of a shortfall created in the welfare reform program. I want to say that I totally agree with, concur with and support the welfare reform activities that this Congress entered into in the 104th Congress. But when we reduced welfare, in effect we created savings in the entitlement side of the equation or the mandatory portion of the budget, and now we are making up for the differential out of the discretionary portion of the budget. For the average person throughout America, they do not know the difference between mandatory spending [[Page H2710]] and discretionary spending, and they do not care and they need not care. It does not matter to them. But for us who have to work with the numbers day in and day out, we know that we are making great gains in the discretionary portion of the budget pie, saving the American taxpayers money, and we are not making significant or we made less gains on the entitlement side. Hopefully with this budget agreement we will make significantly more gains. But it just seems unfortunate that we have to make up for the shortfall on the discretionary side of the budget that was created on the entitlement side of the budget recognizing that what I just said is inside-the-Beltway jargon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative. He did an outstanding job previously on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], for the terrific job that he is doing under very difficult conditions. Mr. Chairman, I rise to discuss the intent of the provision included in this bill by the Committee on Appropriations that would place a 14- million acre limitation on the number of acres that could be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program in 1997. First of all, I want to make it clear that I am a strong supporter of the CRP program, and I support efforts to ensure a full 36-million acre enrollment. However, my purpose in placing this limitation language in the bill was to ensure that only the most environmentally sensitive land is enrolled in the CRP. USDA maintains that they plan on enrolling acreage that provides the greatest environmental benefit for the dollar spent. Our language merely was giving USDA breathing room to do the job right in accordance with the 1995 farm bill. Currently, over 75 percent of the acres enrolled in the CRP is concentrated in nine States. Much of this acreage was enrolled back in the mid-1980's, when the CRP program was a price support program. Our bill language was meant to ensure that the USDA did not re-enroll some of these highly productive lands when world stocks of grain are exceedingly low. Idling productive acres is not what Congress intended when it passed the farm bill last year. Taxpayer money should not be used to re-enroll productive lands in the CRP program. One of the problems with this new sign up is that this year's bidding occurred only 3 weeks after the new rules were finalized by USDA. This did not leave sufficient time for outreach to farmers who had not previously participated in the program. It is only reasonable to assume that most of the States need some time to disseminate information about the new program. Even more troubling to us was the fact that USDA policies on rental rates discouraged enrollments in the East and the West coastal regions while USDA administrative policies also discouraged Western rangeland from participating in the program. We also wanted to ensure that adequate CRP acreage was provided for the continuous enrollment of buffer strips which are perhaps the most effective way of controlling farm runoff. A final point is that tight Federal dollars must buy maximum conservation benefits. Our appropriations bill language was fiscally responsible in that it saved, in fiscal year 1998, $31 million, and in 1999, $177 million. These moneys could have been available to spend on other critical agricultural programs that we will not otherwise be able to fund at sufficient levels in the upcoming bills. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time on this important issue to express the intent of the CRP bill language. I look forward to continued work with the committee and with USDA to ensure that regional inequities in the administration's CRP program are addressed. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I appreciate the gentleman's concern for his region. It is perfectly appropriate. I would simply say that I think there are many in Congress who have a different view of the provision in the bill at this point with respect to the CRP. It seems to me that on an emergency supplemental, we should not be making this kind of change in basic law. It insures to the detriment of a good many farmers in the upper Midwest. I trust that at the time it will be properly stricken on a point of order. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. We are concerned in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest and the far West that all of the acres will be enrolled within this year in one section of the country. This was meant to be a national program. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is a national program. it should be allowed to proceed the way the department and farmers expected it to. If other regions of the country are behind, I suspect over time that will be a self-correcting phenomenon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Boswell]. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise in support of this emergency supplemental appropriations bill. As many of my colleagues have done, I, too, have been an appropriations person in another life. I realize there is a temptation for Members on supplementals to want to do other things. But I want to remind my colleagues that the intended target of this funding would be the people affected by the flooding which has devastated parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and California. We need to help our neighbors in their time of need, and it is the right thing to do. Nearly 4 years ago my State of Iowa suffered from the great flood of 1993, a 500-year flood. I remember the assistance the Federal Government provided us in our communities in our time of great need. There may be provisions in this massive funding bill that we may find objectionable; that will always be the case. But please do not derail this because of wanting to attach to a supplemental something that would actually delay the needed relief. I ask my colleagues to join me in extending a neighborly helping hand to the affected States and provide them with the help they need to improve their situation. Anyone who has been through a devastational flood can attest it takes time, money, and a lot of sweat and hard work to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Let us provide one part of that equation by adopting this emergency funding bill. It only makes sense. Hopefully, no amendments will be adopted that will cause a veto or delay this much needed assistance. We owe it to our neighbors. Let us pass this and get this help to them right away. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the great gentleman from the Great State of Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], a great member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the great chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his great introduction. Mr. Speaker, I am here pleased to support the work of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and working with the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], to bring to the Congress, to the House, a wonderful effort to meet the needs of the flood victims of last year. It is absolutely critical that we pass this bill today, and I totally support it. I also appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], my colleague who was here a moment ago, speaking with regard to CRP. I want my colleagues to understand that, as a member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, we really resisted the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] to cap CRP, Conservation Reserve Program, acres at 14 million acres. We want it to [[Page H2711]] be the 19 million acres that are intended to be enrolled in 1997. This is supported by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture. It is supported by people who care deeply about agriculture across this country, not the least of whom are in my own district, the Fifth District of the State of Washington. CRP is a great program. We should not fool with it in an appropriations bill, especially an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. I happened to be pleased to join with the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture today in raising a point of order to have the cap lifted and the language that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] was able to insert in the subcommittee and full committee and have that language removed from the bill, because it is bad policy on an emergency supplemental. It is also bad policy for agriculture. The Conservation Reserve Program helps habitat, it helps the environment, it helps agriculture, it does all of those things for the good of the Nation. The program has been fairly distributed. I am happy to work with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and anybody else to get the Department of Agriculture to enroll acres that are properly to be enrolled, highly erodible acreage. So I will offer this point of order with the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith] today, and I urge the support of my colleagues. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge]. (Mr. MINGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. MINGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the bill that is under consideration and the Thune amendment. The area of Minnesota which I represent is one of the hardest hit by this spring's flooding. The work, the spirit of the local officials, the residents, the volunteers, State and local officers, and others have prevailed in our area's recovery. This is a tribute to all of this hard work. I also wish to signal my support for the Smith point of order that would strike the limitation on the Conservation Reserve Program. This is an important program for our country. It ought to be allowed to move ahead as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is implementing it. I rise today to commend the community leaders, volunteers, and public servants of flood ravaged communities along the Minnesota River. The flooded communities in my district will begin to put their lives back together with the passage of the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental appropriations bill before the House today. From treacherous November windstorms, to unprecedented January snowstorms, to the flood of the century, Minnesota weather has certainly tested our wills. Cleanup and recovery efforts from the floods have just begun. I have held numerous town meetings in flood- ravaged areas along the Minnesota River, and I have seen that, in the true Minnesota spirit, folks are moving on with their lives with their heads held high. The passage of this bill today is a long-awaited, important step toward recovery. This disaster experience has summoned an unprecedented level of commitment from all levels of government starting at the local level. Mayor Jim Curtis and City Manager Jim Norman of my hometown of Montevideo, as well as Granite Falls' Mayor Dave Smiglewski and City Manager Bill Lavin; Dawson's Mayor Al Schacherer and City Manager David Bovee; Redwood Falls Mayor Sara Triplett and City Manager Jeff Weldon; New Ulm's Mayor Bert Schapekahm and City Manager Richard Salvati; St. Peter's Mayor Jerry Hawbacker and Daniel Jordet; Morton's Mayor David Mude and City Clerk Shirley Dove; Appleton's Mayor Hugo ``Bob'' Roggatz and Coordinator Robert Thompson; Ortonville's Mayor David Ellingson and Clerk Administrator John Jenkins; and Beardsley's Mayor Glenn Burgess; Boyd's Mayor Gary Steinke and Clerk Karen Schmitt; Clara City Mayor Todd Prekker; Maynard's Mayor Richard Groothuis; and Odessa's Mayor Donald Teske, along with numerous county commissioners and emergency management officials, are just a few of the many community leaders who showed remarkable courage and perseverance when their communities were under crisis. The Federal Government worked together with these officials as well. When our region was devastated with drastic winter storms, Federal employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] were on hand to assess the damage of our public roads, buildings, and utilities. Other employees worked efficiently to open roads after unprecedented winter snowfall. During the flooding of the Minnesota and Red Rivers, FEMA employees were immediately disseminating information and helping flood victims get back on their feet. I even heard from several of our local county officials that FEMA responded so quickly, local officials had to speed up their assessment of the damage so that the Federal employees could proceed with their response. These are but a few examples of good government and cooperation we have witnessed throughout this disaster. City mayors to local emergency teams, to county and State representatives, to Federal officials have demonstrated that government can be effective. I am pleased that the Speaker recognized the extent of the damage in our area and vowed his assistance. According to Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson's office, the Speaker has promised Minnesota Federal reimbursement aid at 90 percent when that level is accorded to the States of North Dakota and South Dakota. This would allow the Federal Government to cover 90 percent of the costs while the State and local governments would be responsible for 10 percent. Minnesota's counties who were ravaged by the unprecedented floods should not be excluded from this reimbursement ratio that recognizes the severity of the damage, and I commend the Speaker for lending his support to Minnesota. I would also like to voice my strong support for the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's] in the supplemental appropriations bill. After consultations with the FEMA and local officials in Minnesota, I agree that CDBG's will effectively serve flood victims and I urge my colleagues to support Representative Thune's amendment that provides the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's]. This is the best way for the Federal Government to quickly and efficiently aid flood victims and restore our devastated communities to economic vitality. Unfortunately, this bill came before the House with several extraneous provisions and its consideration was delayed because of several superfluous additions. I was disappointed that the bill was not brought to the floor as a clean, emergency appropriations bill. The extraneous provisions took the focus away from providing aid to the victims of the flood. I am pleased, however, that the Speaker allowed my colleague, Representative Ray LaHood and I to bring forward an amendment to strike one of the extraneous provisions. The bill called for a cap on enrollment of the Conservation Reserve Program [C.R.P.]. The C.R.P. has enabled Minnesota to protect environmentally-sensitive land and has revitalized the wildlife habitat in our region. Our amendment would maintain C.R.P. enrollment at the current level and allow farmers and landowners to continue to take advantage of this popular, efficient, conservation program. I urge my colleagues to recognize the urgency of our situation in Minnesota and allow the House to come to the aid of the flood victims in the Midwest immediately. The passage of this bill will enable local governments to continue to help the people in their flood-ravaged communities put their lives back together. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I am in a similar position as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. I had seven Members who desperately wanted to speak, none of whom are now here. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor]. (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this bill to the House so we can help and assist the flood victims and also provide more financial aid to the troops in Bosnia. There are two issues that I would like the House Members support. One issue deals with WIC. As you know, it should be the objective of this House to fully fund WIC. In my former political life as a county board supervisor and being in charge of an indigent hospital, we would see that women who came in and were enrolled in the WIC Program delivered children that were healthy and probably the children would have a better life of quality, where women who were not enrolled in the WIC Program delivered a low-weight baby and we found the children would experience problems. {time} 1330 So it makes good sense to support WIC because it is humane and also it will save costs in the future. [[Page H2712]] The second issue that I would ask support for deals with the Diaz- Balart-Meek amendment, and this is to extend the social services that will be denied to legal immigrants. What is happening today, Mr. Speaker, is that legal immigrants, people who have lived in this country for many years, have raised their children, have paid their taxes, and because of the new welfare reform legislation, will be denied social services. Many legal immigrants today are receiving notices that they will no longer receive social services due to their status of not being citizens. That is causing a lot of problems, especially to the elderly; people who are in nursing homes, people who need the assistance of food stamps because they are not making enough on their pensions, and also young people will be affected. So I would ask the Members to support the Meek amendment. All it does is extend the services until the end of the fiscal year so that the people will continue to receive services and, once we pass the budget, hopefully all those services will be restored to the legal immigrants. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just take a minute to say that this is an important bill. The President initially requested about $2 billion for disaster relief for people devastated in California and various other States, and then the incredible flooding of the Dakotas and Minnesota occurred in the interim. All of these people, not only in those States I have mentioned, but all told in some 35 States, have suffered the ill effects of terrible weather and the tremendous adversity of nature. Unfortunately, in recent years, the American taxpayer has become the insurer of last resort. So it seems that year after year we have to come up with these supplemental appropriations bills to deal with this devastation. We are happy to do that. We want to make sure that we try to repair some of the damage. There is no way on God's green Earth we will be able to repair all of the damage but, at the same time, we owe the taxpayer the responsibility to make sure that the money is spent wisely; that it is not wasted; that it is simply not just thrown at the problem. In addition to the disaster relief, President Clinton, of course, has detailed troops to Bosnia and to Haiti and other places throughout the world and those expeditions have exceeded their budget and have exceeded the money previously appropriated to the Defense Department, and so we have to pay for those ventures. Unless we, at some point, pull our troops out of those places, that expense goes on from day to day. We cannot simply tell our troops to go out and do the job, but we will not pay for it. So it is important, I think, that we pass this bill, that we pay for the troops, that we pay for the devastation, but that we offset it within the existing budget. We have done that in this bill. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. LIVINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I wanted to mention for the Record that there are a number of colleagues who will have colloquies with myself regarding some items on the emergency side of this bill. There are some complicated difficulties we are having on housing programs. I want my colleagues to know that we are very aware of those circumstances and plan to work with our colleagues. In view of the fact that many were not able to be here at this moment, I would suggest that the gentleman has done fabulous work on this bill, I congratulate him for his efforts, and certainly those people facing disasters across the country owe him a good deal of gratitude. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I want to say this is a bipartisan bill. We have gotten this far in joint agreement because Members across this House of Representatives, working in tandem with the other body, have decided that these items must be paid for, and yet we have also joined forces to make sure that we find the budget authority within our previously appropriated items to offset the increased costs. So right now there are no additional costs to the U.S. taxpayer for what is spent in this bill. I think that makes it a reasonable bill, a bill that meets the demands of the American people and a bill that should be passed with as few amendments as absolutely possible. I do hope that we can get this bill passed without undue political wrangling, that we can put it on the President's desk and that we can get his signature within the next few days, certainly before we leave on the Memorial Day recess. In fact, I would encourage all of our Members on both sides of the aisle and the leadership to make sure they do everything possible to assure that this bill becomes law before the Memorial Day recess. Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to announce my support for H.R. 1469, the supplemental appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997. Included

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1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA
(House of Representatives - May 15, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H2697-H2775] 1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 149 and rule [[Page H2698]] XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1469. {time} 1244 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 1469) making emergency supplemental appropriations for recovery from natural disasters, and for overseas peacekeeping efforts, including those in Bosnia, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Combest in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. {time} 1245 Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to present to the House the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental bill, H.R. 1469, and I hope that the spirit of bipartisanship that has embraced the budget negotiations will carry forward on this emergency appropriations bill. This is the first bill the Committee on Appropriations has presented to the 105th Congress, and I look forward to a very productive year as we move 13 appropriations measures forward. The bill, as reported, proposes $8.4 billion in new spending authority, fully offset, and I stress offset, by the rescission of previously appropriated funds and by including other offsets. Again, I say this bill is fully offset in budget authority. The supplemental bill before us provides the following major items: For disaster recovery we provide $5.509 billion; for miscellaneous appropriations we provide $113 million; and then we offset that spending with $5.622 billion of rescissions. In peacekeeping, in Bosnia and other areas, we repay the Pentagon for what they have already spent, $2.039 billion, and we offset that with rescissions of funds previously made to the Pentagon of $2.040 billion. Mandatory appropriations are included here as well in a third category, mostly for the veterans' pension benefits and other benefits for a total of $757 million. At the beginning of the 104th Congress, Republicans began a policy of paying for supplementals by rescissions of previously appropriated funds. I am very proud to say that, once again, the bill reported by the committee complies with this policy and is totally offset in budget authority. We have had to look far and wide for offsets to pay for this disaster recovery bill, as well as our international commitments in Bosnia, but I would hope that all of our colleagues would recognize the true national scope of this appropriations bill, and that finding different or substitute offsets of any major scope is nearly impossible this late in the fiscal year which began on October 1, 1996. Mr. Chairman, my objective is to get the disaster recovery money to the people who need it and to restore our national security funding to keep our troops safe and secure on the ground in Bosnia. Flood victims in some 35 States badly need the money in this bill. In addition, our troops in Bosnia and those men and women who have served our country in various wars are looking to us to pass this bill quickly as a sign of our support for them. So Mr. Chairman, the bill reported by the committee is an excellent disaster supplemental appropriations bill. It is one which enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, and there are now several amendments that, if adopted, could cause this bill to be vetoed. We are going to speak to them at the appropriate time, but I hope that the Members would understand that it is important that we get this bill on the President's desk and signed into law before we adjourn for the Memorial Day recess. So I hope that we will keep the bill clean and noncontroversial and that we will get it passed, conferenced with the Senate and signed into law as quickly as possible, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, at this point in the Record I would like to insert a table reflecting the programs and amounts in this bill, as reported. [[Page H2699]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.000 [[Page H2700]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.001 [[Page H2701]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.002 [[Page H2702]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.003 [[Page H2703]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.004 [[Page H2704]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.005 [[Page H2705]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.006 [[Page H2706]] Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I am in the happy position of being able to say that at least as of this moment, unless we have amendments adopted that change the situation, I think we are at a point where we can have bipartisan support for this bill. I hope it remains that way. I would like to simply raise one concern I have about the Thune amendment. I had hoped that Mr. Thune would be on the floor. I had asked him to be here. I do not see him at this moment, but let me simply, because we will not have time on the Thune amendment, let me raise some concerns about it now. As the Chair of the committee understands, on the Democratic side of the aisle we were concerned about the committee decision not to provide community development block grant funding for the Dakota floods. We had urged that they do so. The decision was made by the majority party to withhold judgment on whether or not there ought to be any CDBG funding provided, and we respected that. Now I am happy to see that there will be an amendment offered, and I do not expect to object to it when it is offered today by the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune]. I know that the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] and others are very concerned that that amendment pass, but I must say that there are some problems with that amendment that I believe are going to have to be fixed in conference. First of all, as I understand it, the amendment attempts to fund $500 million in CDBG money by reducing the $1.2 billion contained in the original FEMA money to $700 million, which leaves FEMA with a very tight budget. I am concerned about the robbing Peter to pay Paul, the result that that might produce. I am also concerned that that amendment would run the risk of limiting the Federal response and delaying victims from receiving much-needed assistance through the regular FEMA account. In the Senate, the $500 million was added without reducing FEMA's disaster fund account, and I had hoped that we would be able to simply adopt that approach. I think it would be useful if we could do that in conference. I would also note that I am concerned because the gentleman's amendment apparently seeks to make permanent changes in law which would force the Secretary of HUD to waive the requirement that HUD's disaster assistance benefit only low- and moderate-income persons. I am also concerned about why it is necessary to force the Secretary to waive the requirement to hold local public hearings. I am also concerned that it appears to be the intent of the gentleman's amendment to allow HUD to make grants, not loans, to privately owned, for-profit utilities. I am actually unsure about what his intention is in that regard, and I would simply make this point: It has been Government policy that CDBG funds can be used to assist businesses damaged by disasters, to the extent that such businesses are declined loans by the Small Business Administration or because they need assistance above the SBA loan limits, and I am curious as to whether or not it is the intent of the gentleman in that amendment to change that long-standing practice. I hope that he can respond to those questions between now and the time that we deal with this in conference, because everyone wants to see this amendment go forward, but we want to see it go forward in the right way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the Thune amendment is an attempt to provide maximum flexibility to the people who have suffered such devastation in the Dakotas and in Minnesota as a result of the flood. There was some concern that because the flooding was so extensive and had been on the ground for such a long period of time, that certain businesses and certain people who live in houses in that flood zone either would not come back or should not come back, and it has been hard to get a handle on exactly what should be done and whether or not the Federal Government, within the confines and restrictions of current law affecting FEMA, has the flexibility to deal with those questions. To his credit, the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] is attempting I think to answer some of those questions. Others in this Chamber, both on the Republican and the Democrat side, both the majority and minority side, have had different ideas on how to provide that flexibility, and I think this is an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process, so that we can talk it out and by the time we get to conference, hopefully we will provide the maximum amount of flexibility that really does help the people that need help, but without simply throwing the money at the problem and wasting taxpayers' dollars. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I understand the gentleman's comments and agree with them. We do want to provide whatever amount is necessary through the CDBG process to enable them to meet their problems. We do also, because of our responsibility to the taxpayers and to other potential recipients from FEMA, want to make certain that in the process we do not hurt FEMA's ability to deliver aid. We also want to make certain that we do not unnecessarily make permanent changes in law that might come back to haunt us. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding time to me, and I hope I can do it in 2 minutes. I want to commend the gentleman. I do want to say I was very disappointed, though, that the leadership in the Committee on rules chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency Supplemental appropriations will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit, and I would have hoped, knowing that the gentleman has done such a good job and the committee did such a good job of offsetting it, that that would have been protected. I just thought it was a given, because we have been committed to making sure that all of this is offset. Second, and I have so much here, I would just submit it all for the Record, but I would say that I am concerned that the senate has added much more money in to this for highway spending to donor States, far beyond what the President or anybody else has even suggested that should be in. We wanted a bill that was totally offset, and now they have added so much more. Third, as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows, and I would hope that we can resolve this matter, they have also basically put earmarking back in. This House, on both sides of the aisle, did away with earmarking. Some people call them pork projects, some people call them highway demonstration projects, others call them whatever they want to. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional highway aid funds in fiscal year 1997 and the State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. The House is well aware that we have gotten rid of these things, so therefore the other body has put in more money, well beyond what the President wanted, and at the very time both bodies are meeting, the budget committees are meeting, everyone is taking credit for reaching a balanced budget in the year 2002, yet we put more money into this than the President asked or anybody else asked for. So I hope as we get to conference both of these issues will be resolved. Lastly, this is not the place to rewrite ISTEA. The place to rewrite ISTEA is in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this year. I again want to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for his outstanding job, and just hope that we can make sure this money is offset when we go back to committee. [[Page H2707]] I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for yielding me a few minutes so that I might discuss a few of the items in the Transportation Subcommittee's jurisdiction. First, the chairman of the full committee needs to be congratulated for the yeoman's work that he has done in crafting this bill--an $8.4 billion emergency supplemental bill that is fully offset. That was no easy task. He has been forced to make some difficult decisions and has done a commendable job under equally difficult circumstances. I am disappointed, however, that the leadership and the Rules Committee chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit. This action is disturbing and painful. In the area of transportation, the emergency supplemental bill includes $650 million in emergency highway program funds, $40 million for the FAA to procure additional explosive detection equipment, $22 million for the National Transportation Safety Board, and $10 million for emergency railroad rehabilitation. These funds are needed desperately to respond to the devastating floods that occurred throughout our country this spring and to ensure safety in our skies. The bill also includes $318 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. These funds were requested by the President and are intended to compensate those States that were given an expectation of what they would receive--a false expectation, based on an arithmetic error by the Treasury Department--which they then calculated into their State highway fund. The committee has been responsible and diligent in responding to the needs of the people in the flooded areas while being mindful of the desire of the American people to balance the budget and to offset this additional spending. I am concerned, however, that the other body has gone much further than is necessary or warranted. I want to alert my colleagues to the other body's actions on its version of the supplemental bill-- particularly with respect to two troubling issues. These issues have the potential to delay unnecessarily the emergency funding contained in this bill. The other body has provided a total of $933 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. Of this amount, $457 million was added to address the Treasury error that I alluded to earlier in my remarks. Moreover, the other body has provided almost a half a billion dollars more in additional fiscal year 1997 Federal-aid highway spending. This spending was not requested by the President and is not necessary as an emergency requirement. This funding has nothing to do with the arithmetic error. It has to do with providing a hold-harmless provision to donee States to address what the donee States now see as a problem in the highway authorization act of 1991. That act, ISTEA, contained a provision for donor States--those States that had traditionally received back substantially less than they had contributed to the highway trust-fund--that in the last year of the 6 years of ISTEA authorization, which is this year, there would be inserted a 90-percent floor. That is, no State would get back less than 90 percent of what it contributed to the highway fund. The 90-percent standard has been the holy grail of those States that have gotten less back than they have contributed to the fund. This program, the 90 percent of payments program, was part of the common understanding of the Congress and the States when President Bush signed the bill in 1991. It was the understanding of the donee States. It is now the law of the land. Well, now the donee States want more--more than what they have received in excess of their contributions over the last 6 years, more than what they would get under current law, more that what they are entitled to under ISTEA. The donee States would get a half a billion dollars more from the other body. This is not fair to the donor States. While the majority of the other body is represented by donee, States, the overwhelming majority of this House is elected from donor States. Mr. Chairman, this urgent supplemental appropriations bill is not the place--nor is it the time--to debate the donor/donee States issue. The reauthorization of ISTEA is the proper and appropriate legislation to debate this divisive issue. In addition to this item, the other body has taken the unprecedented step of earmarking seven highway demonstration projects from the funds provided to the States under the regular Federal-aid highway program. Rather than provide additional highway funds to the States without strings attached or to earmark funds in excess of the regular Federal- aid highway program for specific projects, as has been the norm, the other body directs certain States to spend a portion--and in some cases all--of their Federal-aid highway fund on specific highway demonstration projects. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional Federal-aid highway funds in fiscal year 1997. The State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. Now, under the provisions of the Senate's bill, the State of Alabama either uses its Federal-aid highway funds on this one particular project by the end of September, or it loses all of it. The State is afforded no elasticity as they have under current law. The process advocated by the other body will significantly change the manner in which the Federal Highway Administration manages the Federal- aid highway program. It will also impact each of the States' ability to fund the projects of greatest need. And it eliminates the flexibility afforded the States and local units of government under current law to determine what project or program is best for them. This process undermines the planning process established by ISTEA and forces the States to give a higher priority on these projects than on other potentially more worthy projects. The House is well aware of our position on the earmarking of highway demonstration projects. As a result of not earmarking highway demonstration projects, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation has been able to increase the Federal-aid highway program by almost $1 billion. In doing so, we have allowed the States and people at the local level to determine the appropriate use of these funds--not people here in Washington in their ivory towers. These issues are surely to be contentious in conference and I felt compelled to inform my colleagues at this stage of the process. I am afraid that a protracted debate on Federal-aid highway formulas and the underlying donor/donee State problem as well as the earmarking highway demonstration projects will delay the necessary funding to respond to the devastating floods that occurred this spring. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson]. (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1300 Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, because it contains very important money for our region for the disaster that we just went through, a disaster like we have never seen in 500 years in Minnesota. In East Grand Forks, pictured here, in Breckenridge, in Ada, in Warren, and all the rural communities along the Red River, we were under water. Nobody can remember anything like this. We had snowstorms, ice storms, and then, last, the flood of 1997. There is the city of East Grand Forks, a town of 9,000 people, that got hit probably the hardest of any community in this flood. Everyone, the entire town was under water. It had to be evacuated because the water kept rising. In the end it just could not be stopped. Every street, every home, every business went under water, and the water did not go down for 2 weeks. In true Minnesota style, the people of Crookston, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, Bemidji, and many other communities opened their doors and provided shelter and people to help us get through, and to help the people driven out by the floods. Now, although the water has receded, the damage and desolation that is everywhere is reminiscent of a nuclear blast. There are no children playing, and life is now just returning to normal. There is garbage and debris every place you look. People's entire lives are sitting on the berms waiting to be scooped up by payloaders. East Grand Forks has lost four of their six schools, [[Page H2708]] their city hall, their library, and neighborhood after neighborhood. Thirty-five to forty percent of this community is going to have to be rebuilt and moved to another part of the area so we do not do this again. Mr. Chairman, in all of the flood-ravaged communities in the Red River Valley, the challenge now is to rebuild. On behalf of all of the Minnesotans in the Seventh District, I want to thank the President, the Vice President, the Speaker, the majority leader and other Members who came out to look at the damage for themselves, and thank them for all the help they have given us to get to this point. The work of FEMA and the director, James Lee Witt, have been outstanding. I want to thank each and every one of the agency personnel who have been out in the Seventh District helping our people and communities get back on their feet. I also want to thank the National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and the mayors. I thank them and I encourage everyone to support this bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill. I would like to urge our colleagues to do everything possible to expedite this bill. The money for the Department of Defense that we provide in this bill is offset from the Department of Defense budget. There is no new money here. It is basically a transfer within the department's funding. But if we cannot get this done expeditiously, the operation and maintenance accounts, the training accounts for all of the services, are going to be severely affected. I just urge our colleagues, however they intend to vote on the bill, help us expedite the consideration of this bill so we do not have to stand down any flight training or stand down any training on the part of any of the services, or affect any of the operations and maintenance, because that is what will happen if we do not get this funding resolution, this supplemental appropriations bills, through here quickly. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes]. (Mr. REYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today, but it was ruled not germane to the bill. The amendment would have provided for displaced workers affected by NAFTA, which I believe qualify for disaster relief. I appreciate the opportunity to enter my remarks, written remarks, into the Record. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today but I've been told that, under the rule, my amendment is not germane so I'm not going to offer it but I would like to tell my colleagues about it. Last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy article about workers who have been dislocated by NAFTA. The dateline on the story was El Paso, TX, which I represent. Mr. Chairman, during the first 2\1/2\ years of NAFTA, Texas had almost 8,000 certified job losses as a result of NAFTA. More than half of those dislocated workers were in El Paso. Under current law, after these workers exhaust their unemployment compensation, they are entitled to cash benefits for 52 weeks while they are retraining. Many of these workers have exhausted those cash benefits and they are still jobless. My amendment would have appropriated an additional $10 million for these workers and extend their eligibility for benefits an additional 6 months. My amendment would also have appropriated an additional $1.6 million for the retraining programs, which would bring the appropriation up to $30 million, the maximum amount authorized. Today we're considering a supplemental appropriations bill primarily for disaster relief. As far as I'm concerned, these dislocated workers need disaster relief, too. Unfortunately, under this rule, we're not going to be able to help them. Mr. Chairman, we have an obligation to these workers and I will be on this floor every chance I get to speak on their behalf. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy]. Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I thank very, very sincerely the Committee on Appropriations chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for their assistance in working up an appropriate disaster relief proposal, formed as the Thune amendment. Mr. Chairman, what we have in North Dakota is an absolute disaster, the dimensions of which we have never experienced before. Grand Forks, ND, second largest town in the State, A town of 50,000, was under water, and the consequences of it are absolutely devastating for the businesses and the homeowners that reside there. What we are finding as we begin tackling the rebuilding component of this is the additional needs that are simply not met with the existing programs. For example, we literally have hundreds of homes in the floodway, a floodway that is proposed to be razed, and a permanent dike established so we do not have this problem ever again. These individuals need to know right now whether or not funds will be available on a home buyout proposal so they might have the means to build on higher ground while the city's enhanced flood protection program moves forward. The Thune amendment allows this to happen by transferring funds from FEMA into the Community Development Block Grant, to be more flexibly applied to the unique needs that this situation presents. The CDBG funds in the Thune amendment are not exclusively for the area, and other areas that have had disasters may also access these funds to augment the existing structure of disaster relief programs. What we have seen with the Thune amendment is a bipartisan response to a truly national disaster. President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Armey, all have visited the area. The gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] have worked at great length putting this together. Please support the Thune amendment and the bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kentucky [Mrs. Northup], a new and valued member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Disaster Recovery Act of 1997, which will get money needed as a result of the floods to Kentucky residents. I am sorry for so many of the people that suffered in my community because of this extraordinary flood that occurred this spring. We had 12 inches of rain in 1 day. We had flash flooding, and then a major flood when the river overflowed as it drained off and the river flooded. This flood was the worst since 1964. There is no amount of personal insurance, of personal precautions, that would prepare a person or a community for this size flood. It is in this bill where we reach out to those people who were struck so badly. My constituents have said this is when Government should become involved in citizens' lives, when Government is truly the last resort for assistance. It is a bill which will help many States and citizens, and it was developed in a teamwork approach. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I hope the President will listen to the needs of my constituents from Kentucky, Arkansas, and throughout the Nation, and please, sign this bill. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi]. Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I commend the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and our ranking member for their hard work to bring this legislation to the floor. When natural disaster strikes, the people of our country have a right to have a response from us, and a response that is quick and appropriate. That is why I hope that we can do that with this legislation, and why it is hard to understand why anyone would want to throw up an obstacle to the very quickest response to the needs of the American people. That obstacle is in the form, in this legislation, of having in order the Gekas amendment. President Clinton has rightfully said that if the Gekas [[Page H2709]] amendment is included in this bill, that he would veto the bill. So I urge my colleagues, when it comes time to vote on the Gekas amendment, to vote against it. Who wins under the Gekas amendment? I think just the House Republicans, because this month's balanced budget agreement includes several new investments in education and other priorities for American families, but Republicans are hoping they can ignore those bipartisan commitments by ramming through this amendment, which would allow them to impose automatic $25 billion cuts in education and other priorities. If the Gekas amendment passes today, here is what could happen: 86,000 fewer children would be enrolled in Head Start, 360,000 fewer students would receive Pell grants for college or job training, 31,000 fewer students would get college work study jobs. If you are a veteran you should be concerned, because 60,000 veterans could be denied medical care, 66,000 people would lose job training and job placement. The list goes on and on. If you are concerned about the environment, the cleanup of 900 toxic waste sites could be delayed, 500,000 fewer at-risk pregnant women and children would get milk, cereal, and other foods. We will be debating that under the WIC provision that our colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], is proposing. It is hard to understand how the Republican majority rejected the WIC funding. It is hard to understand why they would allow the Gekas amendment to stand in the way of the quickest possible aid to people suffering from disaster in America. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Quinn]. Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the amendment today. Our amendment adds $38 million to the supplemental food program for nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, infants, and children under the age of 5. We propose to take unused dollars from a NASA wind tunnel project to offset the cost of the additional dollars. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the interest from Members on both sides of the aisle. If we do not include these funds, 180,000 women, infants, and children will be removed from the program. Because of an increased need, food price inflation, along with an underestimated caseload for fiscal year 1997, a serious reduction of women, infants, and children served through the WIC Program this year is inescapable. The WIC participation for 1996 fiscal year exceeded the initial projection by 100,000 women, infants, and children. Innocent children are facing unique and challenging circumstances at this time. We should be there to help them. For instance, the flooding in North Dakota has caused 3,000 additional caseloads with the WIC Program. There has been some controversy surrounding our request for these additional funds, there is no question. However, if we cannot continue to serve these people who need our help, who are experiencing temporary difficulty with maintaining a healthful diet at their most critical time of growth and development, if we cannot do this, we are essentially cutting the program. WIC is a well-managed program that would put these additional dollars, I believe and others believe, to efficient use. In fact, it includes the most successful cost-containment system of any Federal health-related program. We all know, and it has been justified, it has been talked about, that for every dollar WIC spends on prenatal care, we save $3.50 spent on Medicaid. WIC is one Federal program that I believe and others do that is truly deserving, and it delivers what it promises to the American taxpayer. Medical evidence shows that the WIC Program reduces low birthweight, infant mortality, and child anemia. This amendment is proof that we can do what we want when we work from both sides of the aisle. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding me the time, and also the chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. Mr. Chairman, I stand to lend my support to the bill as reported by the committee, and I want to thank them for their skill and sensitivity in bringing this before the floor. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Clay Shaw, and the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Patrick Kennedy, our amendment, which has been allowed as a part of this particular exercise here this morning, it takes through the fiscal year the cutoff of SSI income and Medicaid checks to legal immigrants, including refugees and asylees. This delay will give Congress a chance, Mr. Chairman, to agree on a permanent solution to help and assist these vulnerable people. Our amendment provides an offsetting rescission in budget authority that will allow us to do this, so that when Congress takes its recess, these very worthy legal immigrants will continue to receive their benefits. Our amendment, which they have been so helpful in letting us offer this morning, is identical to the one that has already been passed by the Senate on May 7. We all know that the Social Security Administration has sent out over 800,000 letters to people letting them know they may or may not have a cutoff of their benefits. We know they have let them know, and this has caused quite a bit of consternation with the many people who received them. But now, because of the sensitivity of this Congress and because of this supplemental bill, we will hopefully, with our amendment, be allowed to help these people. This cutoff was required by the welfare law that was enacted last year. SSI checks, as we know, they go to needy people, they go to aged and frail people and disabled people. They are the most vulnerable people in our society. These people, most of them are over 64 years of age, blind or disabled, and certainly this Congress does not want to see their SSI cut off. We want to thank this Congress, Mr. Chairman, for this wonderful act. {time} 1315 Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds. I would simply like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Florida. The history of this provision is that when we first marked up the supplemental in the Committee on Appropriations, the gentlewoman from Florida tried to offer an amendment which would have provided for a long-term extension of the restoration of the benefits that this amendment covers. She understood fully that it was not the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations, and she understood why the gentleman from Louisiana and I had to oppose that amendment. But she then offered this amendment in committee which would provide in essence for a 1-month bridge so that we would not have people lose their benefits in August, be out of benefits for a month, only to then have them resume if the budget agreement passes which restores these benefits. So she agreed to withhold offering that amendment in committee, so long as her right to offer this amendment was protected on the floor, as in fact now has occurred. I simply want to say that this is the responsible way to approach this problem. It would be ludicrous for these people to be bounced off the rolls for one month and then go back on. I appreciate her commitment on the issue. That is why this matter is before us today. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I agree with everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin has just said but would add that this amendment became necessary because of a shortfall created in the welfare reform program. I want to say that I totally agree with, concur with and support the welfare reform activities that this Congress entered into in the 104th Congress. But when we reduced welfare, in effect we created savings in the entitlement side of the equation or the mandatory portion of the budget, and now we are making up for the differential out of the discretionary portion of the budget. For the average person throughout America, they do not know the difference between mandatory spending [[Page H2710]] and discretionary spending, and they do not care and they need not care. It does not matter to them. But for us who have to work with the numbers day in and day out, we know that we are making great gains in the discretionary portion of the budget pie, saving the American taxpayers money, and we are not making significant or we made less gains on the entitlement side. Hopefully with this budget agreement we will make significantly more gains. But it just seems unfortunate that we have to make up for the shortfall on the discretionary side of the budget that was created on the entitlement side of the budget recognizing that what I just said is inside-the-Beltway jargon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative. He did an outstanding job previously on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], for the terrific job that he is doing under very difficult conditions. Mr. Chairman, I rise to discuss the intent of the provision included in this bill by the Committee on Appropriations that would place a 14- million acre limitation on the number of acres that could be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program in 1997. First of all, I want to make it clear that I am a strong supporter of the CRP program, and I support efforts to ensure a full 36-million acre enrollment. However, my purpose in placing this limitation language in the bill was to ensure that only the most environmentally sensitive land is enrolled in the CRP. USDA maintains that they plan on enrolling acreage that provides the greatest environmental benefit for the dollar spent. Our language merely was giving USDA breathing room to do the job right in accordance with the 1995 farm bill. Currently, over 75 percent of the acres enrolled in the CRP is concentrated in nine States. Much of this acreage was enrolled back in the mid-1980's, when the CRP program was a price support program. Our bill language was meant to ensure that the USDA did not re-enroll some of these highly productive lands when world stocks of grain are exceedingly low. Idling productive acres is not what Congress intended when it passed the farm bill last year. Taxpayer money should not be used to re-enroll productive lands in the CRP program. One of the problems with this new sign up is that this year's bidding occurred only 3 weeks after the new rules were finalized by USDA. This did not leave sufficient time for outreach to farmers who had not previously participated in the program. It is only reasonable to assume that most of the States need some time to disseminate information about the new program. Even more troubling to us was the fact that USDA policies on rental rates discouraged enrollments in the East and the West coastal regions while USDA administrative policies also discouraged Western rangeland from participating in the program. We also wanted to ensure that adequate CRP acreage was provided for the continuous enrollment of buffer strips which are perhaps the most effective way of controlling farm runoff. A final point is that tight Federal dollars must buy maximum conservation benefits. Our appropriations bill language was fiscally responsible in that it saved, in fiscal year 1998, $31 million, and in 1999, $177 million. These moneys could have been available to spend on other critical agricultural programs that we will not otherwise be able to fund at sufficient levels in the upcoming bills. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time on this important issue to express the intent of the CRP bill language. I look forward to continued work with the committee and with USDA to ensure that regional inequities in the administration's CRP program are addressed. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I appreciate the gentleman's concern for his region. It is perfectly appropriate. I would simply say that I think there are many in Congress who have a different view of the provision in the bill at this point with respect to the CRP. It seems to me that on an emergency supplemental, we should not be making this kind of change in basic law. It insures to the detriment of a good many farmers in the upper Midwest. I trust that at the time it will be properly stricken on a point of order. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. We are concerned in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest and the far West that all of the acres will be enrolled within this year in one section of the country. This was meant to be a national program. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is a national program. it should be allowed to proceed the way the department and farmers expected it to. If other regions of the country are behind, I suspect over time that will be a self-correcting phenomenon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Boswell]. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise in support of this emergency supplemental appropriations bill. As many of my colleagues have done, I, too, have been an appropriations person in another life. I realize there is a temptation for Members on supplementals to want to do other things. But I want to remind my colleagues that the intended target of this funding would be the people affected by the flooding which has devastated parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and California. We need to help our neighbors in their time of need, and it is the right thing to do. Nearly 4 years ago my State of Iowa suffered from the great flood of 1993, a 500-year flood. I remember the assistance the Federal Government provided us in our communities in our time of great need. There may be provisions in this massive funding bill that we may find objectionable; that will always be the case. But please do not derail this because of wanting to attach to a supplemental something that would actually delay the needed relief. I ask my colleagues to join me in extending a neighborly helping hand to the affected States and provide them with the help they need to improve their situation. Anyone who has been through a devastational flood can attest it takes time, money, and a lot of sweat and hard work to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Let us provide one part of that equation by adopting this emergency funding bill. It only makes sense. Hopefully, no amendments will be adopted that will cause a veto or delay this much needed assistance. We owe it to our neighbors. Let us pass this and get this help to them right away. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the great gentleman from the Great State of Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], a great member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the great chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his great introduction. Mr. Speaker, I am here pleased to support the work of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and working with the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], to bring to the Congress, to the House, a wonderful effort to meet the needs of the flood victims of last year. It is absolutely critical that we pass this bill today, and I totally support it. I also appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], my colleague who was here a moment ago, speaking with regard to CRP. I want my colleagues to understand that, as a member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, we really resisted the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] to cap CRP, Conservation Reserve Program, acres at 14 million acres. We want it to [[Page H2711]] be the 19 million acres that are intended to be enrolled in 1997. This is supported by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture. It is supported by people who care deeply about agriculture across this country, not the least of whom are in my own district, the Fifth District of the State of Washington. CRP is a great program. We should not fool with it in an appropriations bill, especially an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. I happened to be pleased to join with the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture today in raising a point of order to have the cap lifted and the language that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] was able to insert in the subcommittee and full committee and have that language removed from the bill, because it is bad policy on an emergency supplemental. It is also bad policy for agriculture. The Conservation Reserve Program helps habitat, it helps the environment, it helps agriculture, it does all of those things for the good of the Nation. The program has been fairly distributed. I am happy to work with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and anybody else to get the Department of Agriculture to enroll acres that are properly to be enrolled, highly erodible acreage. So I will offer this point of order with the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith] today, and I urge the support of my colleagues. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge]. (Mr. MINGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. MINGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the bill that is under consideration and the Thune amendment. The area of Minnesota which I represent is one of the hardest hit by this spring's flooding. The work, the spirit of the local officials, the residents, the volunteers, State and local officers, and others have prevailed in our area's recovery. This is a tribute to all of this hard work. I also wish to signal my support for the Smith point of order that would strike the limitation on the Conservation Reserve Program. This is an important program for our country. It ought to be allowed to move ahead as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is implementing it. I rise today to commend the community leaders, volunteers, and public servants of flood ravaged communities along the Minnesota River. The flooded communities in my district will begin to put their lives back together with the passage of the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental appropriations bill before the House today. From treacherous November windstorms, to unprecedented January snowstorms, to the flood of the century, Minnesota weather has certainly tested our wills. Cleanup and recovery efforts from the floods have just begun. I have held numerous town meetings in flood- ravaged areas along the Minnesota River, and I have seen that, in the true Minnesota spirit, folks are moving on with their lives with their heads held high. The passage of this bill today is a long-awaited, important step toward recovery. This disaster experience has summoned an unprecedented level of commitment from all levels of government starting at the local level. Mayor Jim Curtis and City Manager Jim Norman of my hometown of Montevideo, as well as Granite Falls' Mayor Dave Smiglewski and City Manager Bill Lavin; Dawson's Mayor Al Schacherer and City Manager David Bovee; Redwood Falls Mayor Sara Triplett and City Manager Jeff Weldon; New Ulm's Mayor Bert Schapekahm and City Manager Richard Salvati; St. Peter's Mayor Jerry Hawbacker and Daniel Jordet; Morton's Mayor David Mude and City Clerk Shirley Dove; Appleton's Mayor Hugo ``Bob'' Roggatz and Coordinator Robert Thompson; Ortonville's Mayor David Ellingson and Clerk Administrator John Jenkins; and Beardsley's Mayor Glenn Burgess; Boyd's Mayor Gary Steinke and Clerk Karen Schmitt; Clara City Mayor Todd Prekker; Maynard's Mayor Richard Groothuis; and Odessa's Mayor Donald Teske, along with numerous county commissioners and emergency management officials, are just a few of the many community leaders who showed remarkable courage and perseverance when their communities were under crisis. The Federal Government worked together with these officials as well. When our region was devastated with drastic winter storms, Federal employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] were on hand to assess the damage of our public roads, buildings, and utilities. Other employees worked efficiently to open roads after unprecedented winter snowfall. During the flooding of the Minnesota and Red Rivers, FEMA employees were immediately disseminating information and helping flood victims get back on their feet. I even heard from several of our local county officials that FEMA responded so quickly, local officials had to speed up their assessment of the damage so that the Federal employees could proceed with their response. These are but a few examples of good government and cooperation we have witnessed throughout this disaster. City mayors to local emergency teams, to county and State representatives, to Federal officials have demonstrated that government can be effective. I am pleased that the Speaker recognized the extent of the damage in our area and vowed his assistance. According to Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson's office, the Speaker has promised Minnesota Federal reimbursement aid at 90 percent when that level is accorded to the States of North Dakota and South Dakota. This would allow the Federal Government to cover 90 percent of the costs while the State and local governments would be responsible for 10 percent. Minnesota's counties who were ravaged by the unprecedented floods should not be excluded from this reimbursement ratio that recognizes the severity of the damage, and I commend the Speaker for lending his support to Minnesota. I would also like to voice my strong support for the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's] in the supplemental appropriations bill. After consultations with the FEMA and local officials in Minnesota, I agree that CDBG's will effectively serve flood victims and I urge my colleagues to support Representative Thune's amendment that provides the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's]. This is the best way for the Federal Government to quickly and efficiently aid flood victims and restore our devastated communities to economic vitality. Unfortunately, this bill came before the House with several extraneous provisions and its consideration was delayed because of several superfluous additions. I was disappointed that the bill was not brought to the floor as a clean, emergency appropriations bill. The extraneous provisions took the focus away from providing aid to the victims of the flood. I am pleased, however, that the Speaker allowed my colleague, Representative Ray LaHood and I to bring forward an amendment to strike one of the extraneous provisions. The bill called for a cap on enrollment of the Conservation Reserve Program [C.R.P.]. The C.R.P. has enabled Minnesota to protect environmentally-sensitive land and has revitalized the wildlife habitat in our region. Our amendment would maintain C.R.P. enrollment at the current level and allow farmers and landowners to continue to take advantage of this popular, efficient, conservation program. I urge my colleagues to recognize the urgency of our situation in Minnesota and allow the House to come to the aid of the flood victims in the Midwest immediately. The passage of this bill will enable local governments to continue to help the people in their flood-ravaged communities put their lives back together. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I am in a similar position as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. I had seven Members who desperately wanted to speak, none of whom are now here. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor]. (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this bill to the House so we can help and assist the flood victims and also provide more financial aid to the troops in Bosnia. There are two issues that I would like the House Members support. One issue deals with WIC. As you know, it should be the objective of this House to fully fund WIC. In my former political life as a county board supervisor and being in charge of an indigent hospital, we would see that women who came in and were enrolled in the WIC Program delivered children that were healthy and probably the children would have a better life of quality, where women who were not enrolled in the WIC Program delivered a low-weight baby and we found the children would experience problems. {time} 1330 So it makes good sense to support WIC because it is humane and also it will save costs in the future. [[Page H2712]] The second issue that I would ask support for deals with the Diaz- Balart-Meek amendment, and this is to extend the social services that will be denied to legal immigrants. What is happening today, Mr. Speaker, is that legal immigrants, people who have lived in this country for many years, have raised their children, have paid their taxes, and because of the new welfare reform legislation, will be denied social services. Many legal immigrants today are receiving notices that they will no longer receive social services due to their status of not being citizens. That is causing a lot of problems, especially to the elderly; people who are in nursing homes, people who need the assistance of food stamps because they are not making enough on their pensions, and also young people will be affected. So I would ask the Members to support the Meek amendment. All it does is extend the services until the end of the fiscal year so that the people will continue to receive services and, once we pass the budget, hopefully all those services will be restored to the legal immigrants. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just take a minute to say that this is an important bill. The President initially requested about $2 billion for disaster relief for people devastated in California and various other States, and then the incredible flooding of the Dakotas and Minnesota occurred in the interim. All of these people, not only in those States I have mentioned, but all told in some 35 States, have suffered the ill effects of terrible weather and the tremendous adversity of nature. Unfortunately, in recent years, the American taxpayer has become the insurer of last resort. So it seems that year after year we have to come up with these supplemental appropriations bills to deal with this devastation. We are happy to do that. We want to make sure that we try to repair some of the damage. There is no way on God's green Earth we will be able to repair all of the damage but, at the same time, we owe the taxpayer the responsibility to make sure that the money is spent wisely; that it is not wasted; that it is simply not just thrown at the problem. In addition to the disaster relief, President Clinton, of course, has detailed troops to Bosnia and to Haiti and other places throughout the world and those expeditions have exceeded their budget and have exceeded the money previously appropriated to the Defense Department, and so we have to pay for those ventures. Unless we, at some point, pull our troops out of those places, that expense goes on from day to day. We cannot simply tell our troops to go out and do the job, but we will not pay for it. So it is important, I think, that we pass this bill, that we pay for the troops, that we pay for the devastation, but that we offset it within the existing budget. We have done that in this bill. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. LIVINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I wanted to mention for the Record that there are a number of colleagues who will have colloquies with myself regarding some items on the emergency side of this bill. There are some complicated difficulties we are having on housing programs. I want my colleagues to know that we are very aware of those circumstances and plan to work with our colleagues. In view of the fact that many were not able to be here at this moment, I would suggest that the gentleman has done fabulous work on this bill, I congratulate him for his efforts, and certainly those people facing disasters across the country owe him a good deal of gratitude. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I want to say this is a bipartisan bill. We have gotten this far in joint agreement because Members across this House of Representatives, working in tandem with the other body, have decided that these items must be paid for, and yet we have also joined forces to make sure that we find the budget authority within our previously appropriated items to offset the increased costs. So right now there are no additional costs to the U.S. taxpayer for what is spent in this bill. I think that makes it a reasonable bill, a bill that meets the demands of the American people and a bill that should be passed with as few amendments as absolutely possible. I do hope that we can get this bill passed without undue political wrangling, that we can put it on the President's desk and that we can get his signature within the next few days, certainly before we leave on the Memorial Day recess. In fact, I would encourage all of our Members on both sides of the aisle and the leadership to make sure they do everything possible to assure that this bill becomes law before the Memorial Day recess. Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to announce my support for H.R. 1469, the supplemental appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997. Included in this bill are several compon

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1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA
(House of Representatives - May 15, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H2697-H2775] 1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 149 and rule [[Page H2698]] XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1469. {time} 1244 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 1469) making emergency supplemental appropriations for recovery from natural disasters, and for overseas peacekeeping efforts, including those in Bosnia, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Combest in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. {time} 1245 Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to present to the House the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental bill, H.R. 1469, and I hope that the spirit of bipartisanship that has embraced the budget negotiations will carry forward on this emergency appropriations bill. This is the first bill the Committee on Appropriations has presented to the 105th Congress, and I look forward to a very productive year as we move 13 appropriations measures forward. The bill, as reported, proposes $8.4 billion in new spending authority, fully offset, and I stress offset, by the rescission of previously appropriated funds and by including other offsets. Again, I say this bill is fully offset in budget authority. The supplemental bill before us provides the following major items: For disaster recovery we provide $5.509 billion; for miscellaneous appropriations we provide $113 million; and then we offset that spending with $5.622 billion of rescissions. In peacekeeping, in Bosnia and other areas, we repay the Pentagon for what they have already spent, $2.039 billion, and we offset that with rescissions of funds previously made to the Pentagon of $2.040 billion. Mandatory appropriations are included here as well in a third category, mostly for the veterans' pension benefits and other benefits for a total of $757 million. At the beginning of the 104th Congress, Republicans began a policy of paying for supplementals by rescissions of previously appropriated funds. I am very proud to say that, once again, the bill reported by the committee complies with this policy and is totally offset in budget authority. We have had to look far and wide for offsets to pay for this disaster recovery bill, as well as our international commitments in Bosnia, but I would hope that all of our colleagues would recognize the true national scope of this appropriations bill, and that finding different or substitute offsets of any major scope is nearly impossible this late in the fiscal year which began on October 1, 1996. Mr. Chairman, my objective is to get the disaster recovery money to the people who need it and to restore our national security funding to keep our troops safe and secure on the ground in Bosnia. Flood victims in some 35 States badly need the money in this bill. In addition, our troops in Bosnia and those men and women who have served our country in various wars are looking to us to pass this bill quickly as a sign of our support for them. So Mr. Chairman, the bill reported by the committee is an excellent disaster supplemental appropriations bill. It is one which enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, and there are now several amendments that, if adopted, could cause this bill to be vetoed. We are going to speak to them at the appropriate time, but I hope that the Members would understand that it is important that we get this bill on the President's desk and signed into law before we adjourn for the Memorial Day recess. So I hope that we will keep the bill clean and noncontroversial and that we will get it passed, conferenced with the Senate and signed into law as quickly as possible, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, at this point in the Record I would like to insert a table reflecting the programs and amounts in this bill, as reported. [[Page H2699]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.000 [[Page H2700]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.001 [[Page H2701]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.002 [[Page H2702]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.003 [[Page H2703]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.004 [[Page H2704]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.005 [[Page H2705]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.006 [[Page H2706]] Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I am in the happy position of being able to say that at least as of this moment, unless we have amendments adopted that change the situation, I think we are at a point where we can have bipartisan support for this bill. I hope it remains that way. I would like to simply raise one concern I have about the Thune amendment. I had hoped that Mr. Thune would be on the floor. I had asked him to be here. I do not see him at this moment, but let me simply, because we will not have time on the Thune amendment, let me raise some concerns about it now. As the Chair of the committee understands, on the Democratic side of the aisle we were concerned about the committee decision not to provide community development block grant funding for the Dakota floods. We had urged that they do so. The decision was made by the majority party to withhold judgment on whether or not there ought to be any CDBG funding provided, and we respected that. Now I am happy to see that there will be an amendment offered, and I do not expect to object to it when it is offered today by the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune]. I know that the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] and others are very concerned that that amendment pass, but I must say that there are some problems with that amendment that I believe are going to have to be fixed in conference. First of all, as I understand it, the amendment attempts to fund $500 million in CDBG money by reducing the $1.2 billion contained in the original FEMA money to $700 million, which leaves FEMA with a very tight budget. I am concerned about the robbing Peter to pay Paul, the result that that might produce. I am also concerned that that amendment would run the risk of limiting the Federal response and delaying victims from receiving much-needed assistance through the regular FEMA account. In the Senate, the $500 million was added without reducing FEMA's disaster fund account, and I had hoped that we would be able to simply adopt that approach. I think it would be useful if we could do that in conference. I would also note that I am concerned because the gentleman's amendment apparently seeks to make permanent changes in law which would force the Secretary of HUD to waive the requirement that HUD's disaster assistance benefit only low- and moderate-income persons. I am also concerned about why it is necessary to force the Secretary to waive the requirement to hold local public hearings. I am also concerned that it appears to be the intent of the gentleman's amendment to allow HUD to make grants, not loans, to privately owned, for-profit utilities. I am actually unsure about what his intention is in that regard, and I would simply make this point: It has been Government policy that CDBG funds can be used to assist businesses damaged by disasters, to the extent that such businesses are declined loans by the Small Business Administration or because they need assistance above the SBA loan limits, and I am curious as to whether or not it is the intent of the gentleman in that amendment to change that long-standing practice. I hope that he can respond to those questions between now and the time that we deal with this in conference, because everyone wants to see this amendment go forward, but we want to see it go forward in the right way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the Thune amendment is an attempt to provide maximum flexibility to the people who have suffered such devastation in the Dakotas and in Minnesota as a result of the flood. There was some concern that because the flooding was so extensive and had been on the ground for such a long period of time, that certain businesses and certain people who live in houses in that flood zone either would not come back or should not come back, and it has been hard to get a handle on exactly what should be done and whether or not the Federal Government, within the confines and restrictions of current law affecting FEMA, has the flexibility to deal with those questions. To his credit, the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] is attempting I think to answer some of those questions. Others in this Chamber, both on the Republican and the Democrat side, both the majority and minority side, have had different ideas on how to provide that flexibility, and I think this is an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process, so that we can talk it out and by the time we get to conference, hopefully we will provide the maximum amount of flexibility that really does help the people that need help, but without simply throwing the money at the problem and wasting taxpayers' dollars. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I understand the gentleman's comments and agree with them. We do want to provide whatever amount is necessary through the CDBG process to enable them to meet their problems. We do also, because of our responsibility to the taxpayers and to other potential recipients from FEMA, want to make certain that in the process we do not hurt FEMA's ability to deliver aid. We also want to make certain that we do not unnecessarily make permanent changes in law that might come back to haunt us. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding time to me, and I hope I can do it in 2 minutes. I want to commend the gentleman. I do want to say I was very disappointed, though, that the leadership in the Committee on rules chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency Supplemental appropriations will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit, and I would have hoped, knowing that the gentleman has done such a good job and the committee did such a good job of offsetting it, that that would have been protected. I just thought it was a given, because we have been committed to making sure that all of this is offset. Second, and I have so much here, I would just submit it all for the Record, but I would say that I am concerned that the senate has added much more money in to this for highway spending to donor States, far beyond what the President or anybody else has even suggested that should be in. We wanted a bill that was totally offset, and now they have added so much more. Third, as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows, and I would hope that we can resolve this matter, they have also basically put earmarking back in. This House, on both sides of the aisle, did away with earmarking. Some people call them pork projects, some people call them highway demonstration projects, others call them whatever they want to. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional highway aid funds in fiscal year 1997 and the State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. The House is well aware that we have gotten rid of these things, so therefore the other body has put in more money, well beyond what the President wanted, and at the very time both bodies are meeting, the budget committees are meeting, everyone is taking credit for reaching a balanced budget in the year 2002, yet we put more money into this than the President asked or anybody else asked for. So I hope as we get to conference both of these issues will be resolved. Lastly, this is not the place to rewrite ISTEA. The place to rewrite ISTEA is in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this year. I again want to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for his outstanding job, and just hope that we can make sure this money is offset when we go back to committee. [[Page H2707]] I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for yielding me a few minutes so that I might discuss a few of the items in the Transportation Subcommittee's jurisdiction. First, the chairman of the full committee needs to be congratulated for the yeoman's work that he has done in crafting this bill--an $8.4 billion emergency supplemental bill that is fully offset. That was no easy task. He has been forced to make some difficult decisions and has done a commendable job under equally difficult circumstances. I am disappointed, however, that the leadership and the Rules Committee chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit. This action is disturbing and painful. In the area of transportation, the emergency supplemental bill includes $650 million in emergency highway program funds, $40 million for the FAA to procure additional explosive detection equipment, $22 million for the National Transportation Safety Board, and $10 million for emergency railroad rehabilitation. These funds are needed desperately to respond to the devastating floods that occurred throughout our country this spring and to ensure safety in our skies. The bill also includes $318 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. These funds were requested by the President and are intended to compensate those States that were given an expectation of what they would receive--a false expectation, based on an arithmetic error by the Treasury Department--which they then calculated into their State highway fund. The committee has been responsible and diligent in responding to the needs of the people in the flooded areas while being mindful of the desire of the American people to balance the budget and to offset this additional spending. I am concerned, however, that the other body has gone much further than is necessary or warranted. I want to alert my colleagues to the other body's actions on its version of the supplemental bill-- particularly with respect to two troubling issues. These issues have the potential to delay unnecessarily the emergency funding contained in this bill. The other body has provided a total of $933 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. Of this amount, $457 million was added to address the Treasury error that I alluded to earlier in my remarks. Moreover, the other body has provided almost a half a billion dollars more in additional fiscal year 1997 Federal-aid highway spending. This spending was not requested by the President and is not necessary as an emergency requirement. This funding has nothing to do with the arithmetic error. It has to do with providing a hold-harmless provision to donee States to address what the donee States now see as a problem in the highway authorization act of 1991. That act, ISTEA, contained a provision for donor States--those States that had traditionally received back substantially less than they had contributed to the highway trust-fund--that in the last year of the 6 years of ISTEA authorization, which is this year, there would be inserted a 90-percent floor. That is, no State would get back less than 90 percent of what it contributed to the highway fund. The 90-percent standard has been the holy grail of those States that have gotten less back than they have contributed to the fund. This program, the 90 percent of payments program, was part of the common understanding of the Congress and the States when President Bush signed the bill in 1991. It was the understanding of the donee States. It is now the law of the land. Well, now the donee States want more--more than what they have received in excess of their contributions over the last 6 years, more than what they would get under current law, more that what they are entitled to under ISTEA. The donee States would get a half a billion dollars more from the other body. This is not fair to the donor States. While the majority of the other body is represented by donee, States, the overwhelming majority of this House is elected from donor States. Mr. Chairman, this urgent supplemental appropriations bill is not the place--nor is it the time--to debate the donor/donee States issue. The reauthorization of ISTEA is the proper and appropriate legislation to debate this divisive issue. In addition to this item, the other body has taken the unprecedented step of earmarking seven highway demonstration projects from the funds provided to the States under the regular Federal-aid highway program. Rather than provide additional highway funds to the States without strings attached or to earmark funds in excess of the regular Federal- aid highway program for specific projects, as has been the norm, the other body directs certain States to spend a portion--and in some cases all--of their Federal-aid highway fund on specific highway demonstration projects. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional Federal-aid highway funds in fiscal year 1997. The State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. Now, under the provisions of the Senate's bill, the State of Alabama either uses its Federal-aid highway funds on this one particular project by the end of September, or it loses all of it. The State is afforded no elasticity as they have under current law. The process advocated by the other body will significantly change the manner in which the Federal Highway Administration manages the Federal- aid highway program. It will also impact each of the States' ability to fund the projects of greatest need. And it eliminates the flexibility afforded the States and local units of government under current law to determine what project or program is best for them. This process undermines the planning process established by ISTEA and forces the States to give a higher priority on these projects than on other potentially more worthy projects. The House is well aware of our position on the earmarking of highway demonstration projects. As a result of not earmarking highway demonstration projects, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation has been able to increase the Federal-aid highway program by almost $1 billion. In doing so, we have allowed the States and people at the local level to determine the appropriate use of these funds--not people here in Washington in their ivory towers. These issues are surely to be contentious in conference and I felt compelled to inform my colleagues at this stage of the process. I am afraid that a protracted debate on Federal-aid highway formulas and the underlying donor/donee State problem as well as the earmarking highway demonstration projects will delay the necessary funding to respond to the devastating floods that occurred this spring. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson]. (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1300 Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, because it contains very important money for our region for the disaster that we just went through, a disaster like we have never seen in 500 years in Minnesota. In East Grand Forks, pictured here, in Breckenridge, in Ada, in Warren, and all the rural communities along the Red River, we were under water. Nobody can remember anything like this. We had snowstorms, ice storms, and then, last, the flood of 1997. There is the city of East Grand Forks, a town of 9,000 people, that got hit probably the hardest of any community in this flood. Everyone, the entire town was under water. It had to be evacuated because the water kept rising. In the end it just could not be stopped. Every street, every home, every business went under water, and the water did not go down for 2 weeks. In true Minnesota style, the people of Crookston, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, Bemidji, and many other communities opened their doors and provided shelter and people to help us get through, and to help the people driven out by the floods. Now, although the water has receded, the damage and desolation that is everywhere is reminiscent of a nuclear blast. There are no children playing, and life is now just returning to normal. There is garbage and debris every place you look. People's entire lives are sitting on the berms waiting to be scooped up by payloaders. East Grand Forks has lost four of their six schools, [[Page H2708]] their city hall, their library, and neighborhood after neighborhood. Thirty-five to forty percent of this community is going to have to be rebuilt and moved to another part of the area so we do not do this again. Mr. Chairman, in all of the flood-ravaged communities in the Red River Valley, the challenge now is to rebuild. On behalf of all of the Minnesotans in the Seventh District, I want to thank the President, the Vice President, the Speaker, the majority leader and other Members who came out to look at the damage for themselves, and thank them for all the help they have given us to get to this point. The work of FEMA and the director, James Lee Witt, have been outstanding. I want to thank each and every one of the agency personnel who have been out in the Seventh District helping our people and communities get back on their feet. I also want to thank the National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and the mayors. I thank them and I encourage everyone to support this bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill. I would like to urge our colleagues to do everything possible to expedite this bill. The money for the Department of Defense that we provide in this bill is offset from the Department of Defense budget. There is no new money here. It is basically a transfer within the department's funding. But if we cannot get this done expeditiously, the operation and maintenance accounts, the training accounts for all of the services, are going to be severely affected. I just urge our colleagues, however they intend to vote on the bill, help us expedite the consideration of this bill so we do not have to stand down any flight training or stand down any training on the part of any of the services, or affect any of the operations and maintenance, because that is what will happen if we do not get this funding resolution, this supplemental appropriations bills, through here quickly. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes]. (Mr. REYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today, but it was ruled not germane to the bill. The amendment would have provided for displaced workers affected by NAFTA, which I believe qualify for disaster relief. I appreciate the opportunity to enter my remarks, written remarks, into the Record. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today but I've been told that, under the rule, my amendment is not germane so I'm not going to offer it but I would like to tell my colleagues about it. Last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy article about workers who have been dislocated by NAFTA. The dateline on the story was El Paso, TX, which I represent. Mr. Chairman, during the first 2\1/2\ years of NAFTA, Texas had almost 8,000 certified job losses as a result of NAFTA. More than half of those dislocated workers were in El Paso. Under current law, after these workers exhaust their unemployment compensation, they are entitled to cash benefits for 52 weeks while they are retraining. Many of these workers have exhausted those cash benefits and they are still jobless. My amendment would have appropriated an additional $10 million for these workers and extend their eligibility for benefits an additional 6 months. My amendment would also have appropriated an additional $1.6 million for the retraining programs, which would bring the appropriation up to $30 million, the maximum amount authorized. Today we're considering a supplemental appropriations bill primarily for disaster relief. As far as I'm concerned, these dislocated workers need disaster relief, too. Unfortunately, under this rule, we're not going to be able to help them. Mr. Chairman, we have an obligation to these workers and I will be on this floor every chance I get to speak on their behalf. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy]. Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I thank very, very sincerely the Committee on Appropriations chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for their assistance in working up an appropriate disaster relief proposal, formed as the Thune amendment. Mr. Chairman, what we have in North Dakota is an absolute disaster, the dimensions of which we have never experienced before. Grand Forks, ND, second largest town in the State, A town of 50,000, was under water, and the consequences of it are absolutely devastating for the businesses and the homeowners that reside there. What we are finding as we begin tackling the rebuilding component of this is the additional needs that are simply not met with the existing programs. For example, we literally have hundreds of homes in the floodway, a floodway that is proposed to be razed, and a permanent dike established so we do not have this problem ever again. These individuals need to know right now whether or not funds will be available on a home buyout proposal so they might have the means to build on higher ground while the city's enhanced flood protection program moves forward. The Thune amendment allows this to happen by transferring funds from FEMA into the Community Development Block Grant, to be more flexibly applied to the unique needs that this situation presents. The CDBG funds in the Thune amendment are not exclusively for the area, and other areas that have had disasters may also access these funds to augment the existing structure of disaster relief programs. What we have seen with the Thune amendment is a bipartisan response to a truly national disaster. President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Armey, all have visited the area. The gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] have worked at great length putting this together. Please support the Thune amendment and the bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kentucky [Mrs. Northup], a new and valued member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Disaster Recovery Act of 1997, which will get money needed as a result of the floods to Kentucky residents. I am sorry for so many of the people that suffered in my community because of this extraordinary flood that occurred this spring. We had 12 inches of rain in 1 day. We had flash flooding, and then a major flood when the river overflowed as it drained off and the river flooded. This flood was the worst since 1964. There is no amount of personal insurance, of personal precautions, that would prepare a person or a community for this size flood. It is in this bill where we reach out to those people who were struck so badly. My constituents have said this is when Government should become involved in citizens' lives, when Government is truly the last resort for assistance. It is a bill which will help many States and citizens, and it was developed in a teamwork approach. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I hope the President will listen to the needs of my constituents from Kentucky, Arkansas, and throughout the Nation, and please, sign this bill. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi]. Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I commend the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and our ranking member for their hard work to bring this legislation to the floor. When natural disaster strikes, the people of our country have a right to have a response from us, and a response that is quick and appropriate. That is why I hope that we can do that with this legislation, and why it is hard to understand why anyone would want to throw up an obstacle to the very quickest response to the needs of the American people. That obstacle is in the form, in this legislation, of having in order the Gekas amendment. President Clinton has rightfully said that if the Gekas [[Page H2709]] amendment is included in this bill, that he would veto the bill. So I urge my colleagues, when it comes time to vote on the Gekas amendment, to vote against it. Who wins under the Gekas amendment? I think just the House Republicans, because this month's balanced budget agreement includes several new investments in education and other priorities for American families, but Republicans are hoping they can ignore those bipartisan commitments by ramming through this amendment, which would allow them to impose automatic $25 billion cuts in education and other priorities. If the Gekas amendment passes today, here is what could happen: 86,000 fewer children would be enrolled in Head Start, 360,000 fewer students would receive Pell grants for college or job training, 31,000 fewer students would get college work study jobs. If you are a veteran you should be concerned, because 60,000 veterans could be denied medical care, 66,000 people would lose job training and job placement. The list goes on and on. If you are concerned about the environment, the cleanup of 900 toxic waste sites could be delayed, 500,000 fewer at-risk pregnant women and children would get milk, cereal, and other foods. We will be debating that under the WIC provision that our colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], is proposing. It is hard to understand how the Republican majority rejected the WIC funding. It is hard to understand why they would allow the Gekas amendment to stand in the way of the quickest possible aid to people suffering from disaster in America. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Quinn]. Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the amendment today. Our amendment adds $38 million to the supplemental food program for nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, infants, and children under the age of 5. We propose to take unused dollars from a NASA wind tunnel project to offset the cost of the additional dollars. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the interest from Members on both sides of the aisle. If we do not include these funds, 180,000 women, infants, and children will be removed from the program. Because of an increased need, food price inflation, along with an underestimated caseload for fiscal year 1997, a serious reduction of women, infants, and children served through the WIC Program this year is inescapable. The WIC participation for 1996 fiscal year exceeded the initial projection by 100,000 women, infants, and children. Innocent children are facing unique and challenging circumstances at this time. We should be there to help them. For instance, the flooding in North Dakota has caused 3,000 additional caseloads with the WIC Program. There has been some controversy surrounding our request for these additional funds, there is no question. However, if we cannot continue to serve these people who need our help, who are experiencing temporary difficulty with maintaining a healthful diet at their most critical time of growth and development, if we cannot do this, we are essentially cutting the program. WIC is a well-managed program that would put these additional dollars, I believe and others believe, to efficient use. In fact, it includes the most successful cost-containment system of any Federal health-related program. We all know, and it has been justified, it has been talked about, that for every dollar WIC spends on prenatal care, we save $3.50 spent on Medicaid. WIC is one Federal program that I believe and others do that is truly deserving, and it delivers what it promises to the American taxpayer. Medical evidence shows that the WIC Program reduces low birthweight, infant mortality, and child anemia. This amendment is proof that we can do what we want when we work from both sides of the aisle. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding me the time, and also the chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. Mr. Chairman, I stand to lend my support to the bill as reported by the committee, and I want to thank them for their skill and sensitivity in bringing this before the floor. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Clay Shaw, and the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Patrick Kennedy, our amendment, which has been allowed as a part of this particular exercise here this morning, it takes through the fiscal year the cutoff of SSI income and Medicaid checks to legal immigrants, including refugees and asylees. This delay will give Congress a chance, Mr. Chairman, to agree on a permanent solution to help and assist these vulnerable people. Our amendment provides an offsetting rescission in budget authority that will allow us to do this, so that when Congress takes its recess, these very worthy legal immigrants will continue to receive their benefits. Our amendment, which they have been so helpful in letting us offer this morning, is identical to the one that has already been passed by the Senate on May 7. We all know that the Social Security Administration has sent out over 800,000 letters to people letting them know they may or may not have a cutoff of their benefits. We know they have let them know, and this has caused quite a bit of consternation with the many people who received them. But now, because of the sensitivity of this Congress and because of this supplemental bill, we will hopefully, with our amendment, be allowed to help these people. This cutoff was required by the welfare law that was enacted last year. SSI checks, as we know, they go to needy people, they go to aged and frail people and disabled people. They are the most vulnerable people in our society. These people, most of them are over 64 years of age, blind or disabled, and certainly this Congress does not want to see their SSI cut off. We want to thank this Congress, Mr. Chairman, for this wonderful act. {time} 1315 Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds. I would simply like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Florida. The history of this provision is that when we first marked up the supplemental in the Committee on Appropriations, the gentlewoman from Florida tried to offer an amendment which would have provided for a long-term extension of the restoration of the benefits that this amendment covers. She understood fully that it was not the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations, and she understood why the gentleman from Louisiana and I had to oppose that amendment. But she then offered this amendment in committee which would provide in essence for a 1-month bridge so that we would not have people lose their benefits in August, be out of benefits for a month, only to then have them resume if the budget agreement passes which restores these benefits. So she agreed to withhold offering that amendment in committee, so long as her right to offer this amendment was protected on the floor, as in fact now has occurred. I simply want to say that this is the responsible way to approach this problem. It would be ludicrous for these people to be bounced off the rolls for one month and then go back on. I appreciate her commitment on the issue. That is why this matter is before us today. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I agree with everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin has just said but would add that this amendment became necessary because of a shortfall created in the welfare reform program. I want to say that I totally agree with, concur with and support the welfare reform activities that this Congress entered into in the 104th Congress. But when we reduced welfare, in effect we created savings in the entitlement side of the equation or the mandatory portion of the budget, and now we are making up for the differential out of the discretionary portion of the budget. For the average person throughout America, they do not know the difference between mandatory spending [[Page H2710]] and discretionary spending, and they do not care and they need not care. It does not matter to them. But for us who have to work with the numbers day in and day out, we know that we are making great gains in the discretionary portion of the budget pie, saving the American taxpayers money, and we are not making significant or we made less gains on the entitlement side. Hopefully with this budget agreement we will make significantly more gains. But it just seems unfortunate that we have to make up for the shortfall on the discretionary side of the budget that was created on the entitlement side of the budget recognizing that what I just said is inside-the-Beltway jargon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative. He did an outstanding job previously on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], for the terrific job that he is doing under very difficult conditions. Mr. Chairman, I rise to discuss the intent of the provision included in this bill by the Committee on Appropriations that would place a 14- million acre limitation on the number of acres that could be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program in 1997. First of all, I want to make it clear that I am a strong supporter of the CRP program, and I support efforts to ensure a full 36-million acre enrollment. However, my purpose in placing this limitation language in the bill was to ensure that only the most environmentally sensitive land is enrolled in the CRP. USDA maintains that they plan on enrolling acreage that provides the greatest environmental benefit for the dollar spent. Our language merely was giving USDA breathing room to do the job right in accordance with the 1995 farm bill. Currently, over 75 percent of the acres enrolled in the CRP is concentrated in nine States. Much of this acreage was enrolled back in the mid-1980's, when the CRP program was a price support program. Our bill language was meant to ensure that the USDA did not re-enroll some of these highly productive lands when world stocks of grain are exceedingly low. Idling productive acres is not what Congress intended when it passed the farm bill last year. Taxpayer money should not be used to re-enroll productive lands in the CRP program. One of the problems with this new sign up is that this year's bidding occurred only 3 weeks after the new rules were finalized by USDA. This did not leave sufficient time for outreach to farmers who had not previously participated in the program. It is only reasonable to assume that most of the States need some time to disseminate information about the new program. Even more troubling to us was the fact that USDA policies on rental rates discouraged enrollments in the East and the West coastal regions while USDA administrative policies also discouraged Western rangeland from participating in the program. We also wanted to ensure that adequate CRP acreage was provided for the continuous enrollment of buffer strips which are perhaps the most effective way of controlling farm runoff. A final point is that tight Federal dollars must buy maximum conservation benefits. Our appropriations bill language was fiscally responsible in that it saved, in fiscal year 1998, $31 million, and in 1999, $177 million. These moneys could have been available to spend on other critical agricultural programs that we will not otherwise be able to fund at sufficient levels in the upcoming bills. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time on this important issue to express the intent of the CRP bill language. I look forward to continued work with the committee and with USDA to ensure that regional inequities in the administration's CRP program are addressed. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I appreciate the gentleman's concern for his region. It is perfectly appropriate. I would simply say that I think there are many in Congress who have a different view of the provision in the bill at this point with respect to the CRP. It seems to me that on an emergency supplemental, we should not be making this kind of change in basic law. It insures to the detriment of a good many farmers in the upper Midwest. I trust that at the time it will be properly stricken on a point of order. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. We are concerned in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest and the far West that all of the acres will be enrolled within this year in one section of the country. This was meant to be a national program. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is a national program. it should be allowed to proceed the way the department and farmers expected it to. If other regions of the country are behind, I suspect over time that will be a self-correcting phenomenon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Boswell]. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise in support of this emergency supplemental appropriations bill. As many of my colleagues have done, I, too, have been an appropriations person in another life. I realize there is a temptation for Members on supplementals to want to do other things. But I want to remind my colleagues that the intended target of this funding would be the people affected by the flooding which has devastated parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and California. We need to help our neighbors in their time of need, and it is the right thing to do. Nearly 4 years ago my State of Iowa suffered from the great flood of 1993, a 500-year flood. I remember the assistance the Federal Government provided us in our communities in our time of great need. There may be provisions in this massive funding bill that we may find objectionable; that will always be the case. But please do not derail this because of wanting to attach to a supplemental something that would actually delay the needed relief. I ask my colleagues to join me in extending a neighborly helping hand to the affected States and provide them with the help they need to improve their situation. Anyone who has been through a devastational flood can attest it takes time, money, and a lot of sweat and hard work to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Let us provide one part of that equation by adopting this emergency funding bill. It only makes sense. Hopefully, no amendments will be adopted that will cause a veto or delay this much needed assistance. We owe it to our neighbors. Let us pass this and get this help to them right away. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the great gentleman from the Great State of Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], a great member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the great chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his great introduction. Mr. Speaker, I am here pleased to support the work of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and working with the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], to bring to the Congress, to the House, a wonderful effort to meet the needs of the flood victims of last year. It is absolutely critical that we pass this bill today, and I totally support it. I also appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], my colleague who was here a moment ago, speaking with regard to CRP. I want my colleagues to understand that, as a member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, we really resisted the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] to cap CRP, Conservation Reserve Program, acres at 14 million acres. We want it to [[Page H2711]] be the 19 million acres that are intended to be enrolled in 1997. This is supported by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture. It is supported by people who care deeply about agriculture across this country, not the least of whom are in my own district, the Fifth District of the State of Washington. CRP is a great program. We should not fool with it in an appropriations bill, especially an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. I happened to be pleased to join with the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture today in raising a point of order to have the cap lifted and the language that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] was able to insert in the subcommittee and full committee and have that language removed from the bill, because it is bad policy on an emergency supplemental. It is also bad policy for agriculture. The Conservation Reserve Program helps habitat, it helps the environment, it helps agriculture, it does all of those things for the good of the Nation. The program has been fairly distributed. I am happy to work with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and anybody else to get the Department of Agriculture to enroll acres that are properly to be enrolled, highly erodible acreage. So I will offer this point of order with the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith] today, and I urge the support of my colleagues. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge]. (Mr. MINGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. MINGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the bill that is under consideration and the Thune amendment. The area of Minnesota which I represent is one of the hardest hit by this spring's flooding. The work, the spirit of the local officials, the residents, the volunteers, State and local officers, and others have prevailed in our area's recovery. This is a tribute to all of this hard work. I also wish to signal my support for the Smith point of order that would strike the limitation on the Conservation Reserve Program. This is an important program for our country. It ought to be allowed to move ahead as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is implementing it. I rise today to commend the community leaders, volunteers, and public servants of flood ravaged communities along the Minnesota River. The flooded communities in my district will begin to put their lives back together with the passage of the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental appropriations bill before the House today. From treacherous November windstorms, to unprecedented January snowstorms, to the flood of the century, Minnesota weather has certainly tested our wills. Cleanup and recovery efforts from the floods have just begun. I have held numerous town meetings in flood- ravaged areas along the Minnesota River, and I have seen that, in the true Minnesota spirit, folks are moving on with their lives with their heads held high. The passage of this bill today is a long-awaited, important step toward recovery. This disaster experience has summoned an unprecedented level of commitment from all levels of government starting at the local level. Mayor Jim Curtis and City Manager Jim Norman of my hometown of Montevideo, as well as Granite Falls' Mayor Dave Smiglewski and City Manager Bill Lavin; Dawson's Mayor Al Schacherer and City Manager David Bovee; Redwood Falls Mayor Sara Triplett and City Manager Jeff Weldon; New Ulm's Mayor Bert Schapekahm and City Manager Richard Salvati; St. Peter's Mayor Jerry Hawbacker and Daniel Jordet; Morton's Mayor David Mude and City Clerk Shirley Dove; Appleton's Mayor Hugo ``Bob'' Roggatz and Coordinator Robert Thompson; Ortonville's Mayor David Ellingson and Clerk Administrator John Jenkins; and Beardsley's Mayor Glenn Burgess; Boyd's Mayor Gary Steinke and Clerk Karen Schmitt; Clara City Mayor Todd Prekker; Maynard's Mayor Richard Groothuis; and Odessa's Mayor Donald Teske, along with numerous county commissioners and emergency management officials, are just a few of the many community leaders who showed remarkable courage and perseverance when their communities were under crisis. The Federal Government worked together with these officials as well. When our region was devastated with drastic winter storms, Federal employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] were on hand to assess the damage of our public roads, buildings, and utilities. Other employees worked efficiently to open roads after unprecedented winter snowfall. During the flooding of the Minnesota and Red Rivers, FEMA employees were immediately disseminating information and helping flood victims get back on their feet. I even heard from several of our local county officials that FEMA responded so quickly, local officials had to speed up their assessment of the damage so that the Federal employees could proceed with their response. These are but a few examples of good government and cooperation we have witnessed throughout this disaster. City mayors to local emergency teams, to county and State representatives, to Federal officials have demonstrated that government can be effective. I am pleased that the Speaker recognized the extent of the damage in our area and vowed his assistance. According to Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson's office, the Speaker has promised Minnesota Federal reimbursement aid at 90 percent when that level is accorded to the States of North Dakota and South Dakota. This would allow the Federal Government to cover 90 percent of the costs while the State and local governments would be responsible for 10 percent. Minnesota's counties who were ravaged by the unprecedented floods should not be excluded from this reimbursement ratio that recognizes the severity of the damage, and I commend the Speaker for lending his support to Minnesota. I would also like to voice my strong support for the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's] in the supplemental appropriations bill. After consultations with the FEMA and local officials in Minnesota, I agree that CDBG's will effectively serve flood victims and I urge my colleagues to support Representative Thune's amendment that provides the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's]. This is the best way for the Federal Government to quickly and efficiently aid flood victims and restore our devastated communities to economic vitality. Unfortunately, this bill came before the House with several extraneous provisions and its consideration was delayed because of several superfluous additions. I was disappointed that the bill was not brought to the floor as a clean, emergency appropriations bill. The extraneous provisions took the focus away from providing aid to the victims of the flood. I am pleased, however, that the Speaker allowed my colleague, Representative Ray LaHood and I to bring forward an amendment to strike one of the extraneous provisions. The bill called for a cap on enrollment of the Conservation Reserve Program [C.R.P.]. The C.R.P. has enabled Minnesota to protect environmentally-sensitive land and has revitalized the wildlife habitat in our region. Our amendment would maintain C.R.P. enrollment at the current level and allow farmers and landowners to continue to take advantage of this popular, efficient, conservation program. I urge my colleagues to recognize the urgency of our situation in Minnesota and allow the House to come to the aid of the flood victims in the Midwest immediately. The passage of this bill will enable local governments to continue to help the people in their flood-ravaged communities put their lives back together. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I am in a similar position as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. I had seven Members who desperately wanted to speak, none of whom are now here. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor]. (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this bill to the House so we can help and assist the flood victims and also provide more financial aid to the troops in Bosnia. There are two issues that I would like the House Members support. One issue deals with WIC. As you know, it should be the objective of this House to fully fund WIC. In my former political life as a county board supervisor and being in charge of an indigent hospital, we would see that women who came in and were enrolled in the WIC Program delivered children that were healthy and probably the children would have a better life of quality, where women who were not enrolled in the WIC Program delivered a low-weight baby and we found the children would experience problems. {time} 1330 So it makes good sense to support WIC because it is humane and also it will save costs in the future. [[Page H2712]] The second issue that I would ask support for deals with the Diaz- Balart-Meek amendment, and this is to extend the social services that will be denied to legal immigrants. What is happening today, Mr. Speaker, is that legal immigrants, people who have lived in this country for many years, have raised their children, have paid their taxes, and because of the new welfare reform legislation, will be denied social services. Many legal immigrants today are receiving notices that they will no longer receive social services due to their status of not being citizens. That is causing a lot of problems, especially to the elderly; people who are in nursing homes, people who need the assistance of food stamps because they are not making enough on their pensions, and also young people will be affected. So I would ask the Members to support the Meek amendment. All it does is extend the services until the end of the fiscal year so that the people will continue to receive services and, once we pass the budget, hopefully all those services will be restored to the legal immigrants. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just take a minute to say that this is an important bill. The President initially requested about $2 billion for disaster relief for people devastated in California and various other States, and then the incredible flooding of the Dakotas and Minnesota occurred in the interim. All of these people, not only in those States I have mentioned, but all told in some 35 States, have suffered the ill effects of terrible weather and the tremendous adversity of nature. Unfortunately, in recent years, the American taxpayer has become the insurer of last resort. So it seems that year after year we have to come up with these supplemental appropriations bills to deal with this devastation. We are happy to do that. We want to make sure that we try to repair some of the damage. There is no way on God's green Earth we will be able to repair all of the damage but, at the same time, we owe the taxpayer the responsibility to make sure that the money is spent wisely; that it is not wasted; that it is simply not just thrown at the problem. In addition to the disaster relief, President Clinton, of course, has detailed troops to Bosnia and to Haiti and other places throughout the world and those expeditions have exceeded their budget and have exceeded the money previously appropriated to the Defense Department, and so we have to pay for those ventures. Unless we, at some point, pull our troops out of those places, that expense goes on from day to day. We cannot simply tell our troops to go out and do the job, but we will not pay for it. So it is important, I think, that we pass this bill, that we pay for the troops, that we pay for the devastation, but that we offset it within the existing budget. We have done that in this bill. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. LIVINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I wanted to mention for the Record that there are a number of colleagues who will have colloquies with myself regarding some items on the emergency side of this bill. There are some complicated difficulties we are having on housing programs. I want my colleagues to know that we are very aware of those circumstances and plan to work with our colleagues. In view of the fact that many were not able to be here at this moment, I would suggest that the gentleman has done fabulous work on this bill, I congratulate him for his efforts, and certainly those people facing disasters across the country owe him a good deal of gratitude. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I want to say this is a bipartisan bill. We have gotten this far in joint agreement because Members across this House of Representatives, working in tandem with the other body, have decided that these items must be paid for, and yet we have also joined forces to make sure that we find the budget authority within our previously appropriated items to offset the increased costs. So right now there are no additional costs to the U.S. taxpayer for what is spent in this bill. I think that makes it a reasonable bill, a bill that meets the demands of the American people and a bill that should be passed with as few amendments as absolutely possible. I do hope that we can get this bill passed without undue political wrangling, that we can put it on the President's desk and that we can get his signature within the next few days, certainly before we leave on the Memorial Day recess. In fact, I would encourage all of our Members on both sides of the aisle and the leadership to make sure they do everything possible to assure that this bill becomes law before the Memorial Day recess. Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to announce my support for H.R. 1469, the supplemental appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997. Included

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1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA
(House of Representatives - May 15, 1997)

Text of this article available as: TXT PDF [Pages H2697-H2775] 1997 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR RECOVERY FROM NATURAL DISASTERS, AND FOR OVERSEAS PEACEKEEPING EFFORTS, INCLUDING THOSE IN BOSNIA The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 149 and rule [[Page H2698]] XXIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 1469. {time} 1244 In the Committee of the Whole Accordingly the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the consideration of the bill (H.R. 1469) making emergency supplemental appropriations for recovery from natural disasters, and for overseas peacekeeping efforts, including those in Bosnia, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1997, and for other purposes, with Mr. Combest in the chair. The Clerk read the title of the bill. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as having been read the first time. Under the rule, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston] and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] each will control 30 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. (Mr. LIVINGSTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. {time} 1245 Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to present to the House the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental bill, H.R. 1469, and I hope that the spirit of bipartisanship that has embraced the budget negotiations will carry forward on this emergency appropriations bill. This is the first bill the Committee on Appropriations has presented to the 105th Congress, and I look forward to a very productive year as we move 13 appropriations measures forward. The bill, as reported, proposes $8.4 billion in new spending authority, fully offset, and I stress offset, by the rescission of previously appropriated funds and by including other offsets. Again, I say this bill is fully offset in budget authority. The supplemental bill before us provides the following major items: For disaster recovery we provide $5.509 billion; for miscellaneous appropriations we provide $113 million; and then we offset that spending with $5.622 billion of rescissions. In peacekeeping, in Bosnia and other areas, we repay the Pentagon for what they have already spent, $2.039 billion, and we offset that with rescissions of funds previously made to the Pentagon of $2.040 billion. Mandatory appropriations are included here as well in a third category, mostly for the veterans' pension benefits and other benefits for a total of $757 million. At the beginning of the 104th Congress, Republicans began a policy of paying for supplementals by rescissions of previously appropriated funds. I am very proud to say that, once again, the bill reported by the committee complies with this policy and is totally offset in budget authority. We have had to look far and wide for offsets to pay for this disaster recovery bill, as well as our international commitments in Bosnia, but I would hope that all of our colleagues would recognize the true national scope of this appropriations bill, and that finding different or substitute offsets of any major scope is nearly impossible this late in the fiscal year which began on October 1, 1996. Mr. Chairman, my objective is to get the disaster recovery money to the people who need it and to restore our national security funding to keep our troops safe and secure on the ground in Bosnia. Flood victims in some 35 States badly need the money in this bill. In addition, our troops in Bosnia and those men and women who have served our country in various wars are looking to us to pass this bill quickly as a sign of our support for them. So Mr. Chairman, the bill reported by the committee is an excellent disaster supplemental appropriations bill. It is one which enjoys tremendous bipartisan support, and there are now several amendments that, if adopted, could cause this bill to be vetoed. We are going to speak to them at the appropriate time, but I hope that the Members would understand that it is important that we get this bill on the President's desk and signed into law before we adjourn for the Memorial Day recess. So I hope that we will keep the bill clean and noncontroversial and that we will get it passed, conferenced with the Senate and signed into law as quickly as possible, and I urge its adoption. Mr. Chairman, at this point in the Record I would like to insert a table reflecting the programs and amounts in this bill, as reported. [[Page H2699]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.000 [[Page H2700]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.001 [[Page H2701]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.002 [[Page H2702]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.003 [[Page H2703]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.004 [[Page H2704]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.005 [[Page H2705]] [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TH15MY97.006 [[Page H2706]] Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I am in the happy position of being able to say that at least as of this moment, unless we have amendments adopted that change the situation, I think we are at a point where we can have bipartisan support for this bill. I hope it remains that way. I would like to simply raise one concern I have about the Thune amendment. I had hoped that Mr. Thune would be on the floor. I had asked him to be here. I do not see him at this moment, but let me simply, because we will not have time on the Thune amendment, let me raise some concerns about it now. As the Chair of the committee understands, on the Democratic side of the aisle we were concerned about the committee decision not to provide community development block grant funding for the Dakota floods. We had urged that they do so. The decision was made by the majority party to withhold judgment on whether or not there ought to be any CDBG funding provided, and we respected that. Now I am happy to see that there will be an amendment offered, and I do not expect to object to it when it is offered today by the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune]. I know that the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] and others are very concerned that that amendment pass, but I must say that there are some problems with that amendment that I believe are going to have to be fixed in conference. First of all, as I understand it, the amendment attempts to fund $500 million in CDBG money by reducing the $1.2 billion contained in the original FEMA money to $700 million, which leaves FEMA with a very tight budget. I am concerned about the robbing Peter to pay Paul, the result that that might produce. I am also concerned that that amendment would run the risk of limiting the Federal response and delaying victims from receiving much-needed assistance through the regular FEMA account. In the Senate, the $500 million was added without reducing FEMA's disaster fund account, and I had hoped that we would be able to simply adopt that approach. I think it would be useful if we could do that in conference. I would also note that I am concerned because the gentleman's amendment apparently seeks to make permanent changes in law which would force the Secretary of HUD to waive the requirement that HUD's disaster assistance benefit only low- and moderate-income persons. I am also concerned about why it is necessary to force the Secretary to waive the requirement to hold local public hearings. I am also concerned that it appears to be the intent of the gentleman's amendment to allow HUD to make grants, not loans, to privately owned, for-profit utilities. I am actually unsure about what his intention is in that regard, and I would simply make this point: It has been Government policy that CDBG funds can be used to assist businesses damaged by disasters, to the extent that such businesses are declined loans by the Small Business Administration or because they need assistance above the SBA loan limits, and I am curious as to whether or not it is the intent of the gentleman in that amendment to change that long-standing practice. I hope that he can respond to those questions between now and the time that we deal with this in conference, because everyone wants to see this amendment go forward, but we want to see it go forward in the right way. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, the Thune amendment is an attempt to provide maximum flexibility to the people who have suffered such devastation in the Dakotas and in Minnesota as a result of the flood. There was some concern that because the flooding was so extensive and had been on the ground for such a long period of time, that certain businesses and certain people who live in houses in that flood zone either would not come back or should not come back, and it has been hard to get a handle on exactly what should be done and whether or not the Federal Government, within the confines and restrictions of current law affecting FEMA, has the flexibility to deal with those questions. To his credit, the gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] is attempting I think to answer some of those questions. Others in this Chamber, both on the Republican and the Democrat side, both the majority and minority side, have had different ideas on how to provide that flexibility, and I think this is an ongoing process. It is an ongoing process, so that we can talk it out and by the time we get to conference, hopefully we will provide the maximum amount of flexibility that really does help the people that need help, but without simply throwing the money at the problem and wasting taxpayers' dollars. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would simply say that I understand the gentleman's comments and agree with them. We do want to provide whatever amount is necessary through the CDBG process to enable them to meet their problems. We do also, because of our responsibility to the taxpayers and to other potential recipients from FEMA, want to make certain that in the process we do not hurt FEMA's ability to deliver aid. We also want to make certain that we do not unnecessarily make permanent changes in law that might come back to haunt us. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf], the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding time to me, and I hope I can do it in 2 minutes. I want to commend the gentleman. I do want to say I was very disappointed, though, that the leadership in the Committee on rules chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency Supplemental appropriations will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit, and I would have hoped, knowing that the gentleman has done such a good job and the committee did such a good job of offsetting it, that that would have been protected. I just thought it was a given, because we have been committed to making sure that all of this is offset. Second, and I have so much here, I would just submit it all for the Record, but I would say that I am concerned that the senate has added much more money in to this for highway spending to donor States, far beyond what the President or anybody else has even suggested that should be in. We wanted a bill that was totally offset, and now they have added so much more. Third, as the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations knows, and I would hope that we can resolve this matter, they have also basically put earmarking back in. This House, on both sides of the aisle, did away with earmarking. Some people call them pork projects, some people call them highway demonstration projects, others call them whatever they want to. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional highway aid funds in fiscal year 1997 and the State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. The House is well aware that we have gotten rid of these things, so therefore the other body has put in more money, well beyond what the President wanted, and at the very time both bodies are meeting, the budget committees are meeting, everyone is taking credit for reaching a balanced budget in the year 2002, yet we put more money into this than the President asked or anybody else asked for. So I hope as we get to conference both of these issues will be resolved. Lastly, this is not the place to rewrite ISTEA. The place to rewrite ISTEA is in the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this year. I again want to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations for his outstanding job, and just hope that we can make sure this money is offset when we go back to committee. [[Page H2707]] I thank the chairman of the Appropriations Committee for yielding me a few minutes so that I might discuss a few of the items in the Transportation Subcommittee's jurisdiction. First, the chairman of the full committee needs to be congratulated for the yeoman's work that he has done in crafting this bill--an $8.4 billion emergency supplemental bill that is fully offset. That was no easy task. He has been forced to make some difficult decisions and has done a commendable job under equally difficult circumstances. I am disappointed, however, that the leadership and the Rules Committee chose not to protect from points of order a total of $1.6 billion in rescissions of contract authority. These rescissions are necessary to ensure that the spending contained in this bill is fully offset. Without them, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill will add more than $1.6 billion to the deficit. This action is disturbing and painful. In the area of transportation, the emergency supplemental bill includes $650 million in emergency highway program funds, $40 million for the FAA to procure additional explosive detection equipment, $22 million for the National Transportation Safety Board, and $10 million for emergency railroad rehabilitation. These funds are needed desperately to respond to the devastating floods that occurred throughout our country this spring and to ensure safety in our skies. The bill also includes $318 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. These funds were requested by the President and are intended to compensate those States that were given an expectation of what they would receive--a false expectation, based on an arithmetic error by the Treasury Department--which they then calculated into their State highway fund. The committee has been responsible and diligent in responding to the needs of the people in the flooded areas while being mindful of the desire of the American people to balance the budget and to offset this additional spending. I am concerned, however, that the other body has gone much further than is necessary or warranted. I want to alert my colleagues to the other body's actions on its version of the supplemental bill-- particularly with respect to two troubling issues. These issues have the potential to delay unnecessarily the emergency funding contained in this bill. The other body has provided a total of $933 million in additional fiscal year 1997 obligation authority for the Federal-aid highway program. Of this amount, $457 million was added to address the Treasury error that I alluded to earlier in my remarks. Moreover, the other body has provided almost a half a billion dollars more in additional fiscal year 1997 Federal-aid highway spending. This spending was not requested by the President and is not necessary as an emergency requirement. This funding has nothing to do with the arithmetic error. It has to do with providing a hold-harmless provision to donee States to address what the donee States now see as a problem in the highway authorization act of 1991. That act, ISTEA, contained a provision for donor States--those States that had traditionally received back substantially less than they had contributed to the highway trust-fund--that in the last year of the 6 years of ISTEA authorization, which is this year, there would be inserted a 90-percent floor. That is, no State would get back less than 90 percent of what it contributed to the highway fund. The 90-percent standard has been the holy grail of those States that have gotten less back than they have contributed to the fund. This program, the 90 percent of payments program, was part of the common understanding of the Congress and the States when President Bush signed the bill in 1991. It was the understanding of the donee States. It is now the law of the land. Well, now the donee States want more--more than what they have received in excess of their contributions over the last 6 years, more than what they would get under current law, more that what they are entitled to under ISTEA. The donee States would get a half a billion dollars more from the other body. This is not fair to the donor States. While the majority of the other body is represented by donee, States, the overwhelming majority of this House is elected from donor States. Mr. Chairman, this urgent supplemental appropriations bill is not the place--nor is it the time--to debate the donor/donee States issue. The reauthorization of ISTEA is the proper and appropriate legislation to debate this divisive issue. In addition to this item, the other body has taken the unprecedented step of earmarking seven highway demonstration projects from the funds provided to the States under the regular Federal-aid highway program. Rather than provide additional highway funds to the States without strings attached or to earmark funds in excess of the regular Federal- aid highway program for specific projects, as has been the norm, the other body directs certain States to spend a portion--and in some cases all--of their Federal-aid highway fund on specific highway demonstration projects. As an example, in the Senate bill, the State of Alabama would receive $21 million in additional Federal-aid highway funds in fiscal year 1997. The State of Alabama would be required to spend all of that money on one specific project, the Warrior Loop project. Now, under the provisions of the Senate's bill, the State of Alabama either uses its Federal-aid highway funds on this one particular project by the end of September, or it loses all of it. The State is afforded no elasticity as they have under current law. The process advocated by the other body will significantly change the manner in which the Federal Highway Administration manages the Federal- aid highway program. It will also impact each of the States' ability to fund the projects of greatest need. And it eliminates the flexibility afforded the States and local units of government under current law to determine what project or program is best for them. This process undermines the planning process established by ISTEA and forces the States to give a higher priority on these projects than on other potentially more worthy projects. The House is well aware of our position on the earmarking of highway demonstration projects. As a result of not earmarking highway demonstration projects, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation has been able to increase the Federal-aid highway program by almost $1 billion. In doing so, we have allowed the States and people at the local level to determine the appropriate use of these funds--not people here in Washington in their ivory towers. These issues are surely to be contentious in conference and I felt compelled to inform my colleagues at this stage of the process. I am afraid that a protracted debate on Federal-aid highway formulas and the underlying donor/donee State problem as well as the earmarking highway demonstration projects will delay the necessary funding to respond to the devastating floods that occurred this spring. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson]. (Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) {time} 1300 Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, because it contains very important money for our region for the disaster that we just went through, a disaster like we have never seen in 500 years in Minnesota. In East Grand Forks, pictured here, in Breckenridge, in Ada, in Warren, and all the rural communities along the Red River, we were under water. Nobody can remember anything like this. We had snowstorms, ice storms, and then, last, the flood of 1997. There is the city of East Grand Forks, a town of 9,000 people, that got hit probably the hardest of any community in this flood. Everyone, the entire town was under water. It had to be evacuated because the water kept rising. In the end it just could not be stopped. Every street, every home, every business went under water, and the water did not go down for 2 weeks. In true Minnesota style, the people of Crookston, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, Bemidji, and many other communities opened their doors and provided shelter and people to help us get through, and to help the people driven out by the floods. Now, although the water has receded, the damage and desolation that is everywhere is reminiscent of a nuclear blast. There are no children playing, and life is now just returning to normal. There is garbage and debris every place you look. People's entire lives are sitting on the berms waiting to be scooped up by payloaders. East Grand Forks has lost four of their six schools, [[Page H2708]] their city hall, their library, and neighborhood after neighborhood. Thirty-five to forty percent of this community is going to have to be rebuilt and moved to another part of the area so we do not do this again. Mr. Chairman, in all of the flood-ravaged communities in the Red River Valley, the challenge now is to rebuild. On behalf of all of the Minnesotans in the Seventh District, I want to thank the President, the Vice President, the Speaker, the majority leader and other Members who came out to look at the damage for themselves, and thank them for all the help they have given us to get to this point. The work of FEMA and the director, James Lee Witt, have been outstanding. I want to thank each and every one of the agency personnel who have been out in the Seventh District helping our people and communities get back on their feet. I also want to thank the National Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and the mayors. I thank them and I encourage everyone to support this bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from Florida [Mr. Young], chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the bill. I would like to urge our colleagues to do everything possible to expedite this bill. The money for the Department of Defense that we provide in this bill is offset from the Department of Defense budget. There is no new money here. It is basically a transfer within the department's funding. But if we cannot get this done expeditiously, the operation and maintenance accounts, the training accounts for all of the services, are going to be severely affected. I just urge our colleagues, however they intend to vote on the bill, help us expedite the consideration of this bill so we do not have to stand down any flight training or stand down any training on the part of any of the services, or affect any of the operations and maintenance, because that is what will happen if we do not get this funding resolution, this supplemental appropriations bills, through here quickly. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Reyes]. (Mr. REYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. REYES. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today, but it was ruled not germane to the bill. The amendment would have provided for displaced workers affected by NAFTA, which I believe qualify for disaster relief. I appreciate the opportunity to enter my remarks, written remarks, into the Record. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to offer an amendment today but I've been told that, under the rule, my amendment is not germane so I'm not going to offer it but I would like to tell my colleagues about it. Last week, the New York Times ran a lengthy article about workers who have been dislocated by NAFTA. The dateline on the story was El Paso, TX, which I represent. Mr. Chairman, during the first 2\1/2\ years of NAFTA, Texas had almost 8,000 certified job losses as a result of NAFTA. More than half of those dislocated workers were in El Paso. Under current law, after these workers exhaust their unemployment compensation, they are entitled to cash benefits for 52 weeks while they are retraining. Many of these workers have exhausted those cash benefits and they are still jobless. My amendment would have appropriated an additional $10 million for these workers and extend their eligibility for benefits an additional 6 months. My amendment would also have appropriated an additional $1.6 million for the retraining programs, which would bring the appropriation up to $30 million, the maximum amount authorized. Today we're considering a supplemental appropriations bill primarily for disaster relief. As far as I'm concerned, these dislocated workers need disaster relief, too. Unfortunately, under this rule, we're not going to be able to help them. Mr. Chairman, we have an obligation to these workers and I will be on this floor every chance I get to speak on their behalf. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy]. Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I thank very, very sincerely the Committee on Appropriations chairman and the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for their assistance in working up an appropriate disaster relief proposal, formed as the Thune amendment. Mr. Chairman, what we have in North Dakota is an absolute disaster, the dimensions of which we have never experienced before. Grand Forks, ND, second largest town in the State, A town of 50,000, was under water, and the consequences of it are absolutely devastating for the businesses and the homeowners that reside there. What we are finding as we begin tackling the rebuilding component of this is the additional needs that are simply not met with the existing programs. For example, we literally have hundreds of homes in the floodway, a floodway that is proposed to be razed, and a permanent dike established so we do not have this problem ever again. These individuals need to know right now whether or not funds will be available on a home buyout proposal so they might have the means to build on higher ground while the city's enhanced flood protection program moves forward. The Thune amendment allows this to happen by transferring funds from FEMA into the Community Development Block Grant, to be more flexibly applied to the unique needs that this situation presents. The CDBG funds in the Thune amendment are not exclusively for the area, and other areas that have had disasters may also access these funds to augment the existing structure of disaster relief programs. What we have seen with the Thune amendment is a bipartisan response to a truly national disaster. President Clinton, Speaker Gingrich, the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Armey, all have visited the area. The gentleman from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] and the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Peterson] have worked at great length putting this together. Please support the Thune amendment and the bill. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Kentucky [Mrs. Northup], a new and valued member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mrs. NORTHUP. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 1469, the Disaster Recovery Act of 1997, which will get money needed as a result of the floods to Kentucky residents. I am sorry for so many of the people that suffered in my community because of this extraordinary flood that occurred this spring. We had 12 inches of rain in 1 day. We had flash flooding, and then a major flood when the river overflowed as it drained off and the river flooded. This flood was the worst since 1964. There is no amount of personal insurance, of personal precautions, that would prepare a person or a community for this size flood. It is in this bill where we reach out to those people who were struck so badly. My constituents have said this is when Government should become involved in citizens' lives, when Government is truly the last resort for assistance. It is a bill which will help many States and citizens, and it was developed in a teamwork approach. That is why I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I hope the President will listen to the needs of my constituents from Kentucky, Arkansas, and throughout the Nation, and please, sign this bill. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi]. Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I commend the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and our ranking member for their hard work to bring this legislation to the floor. When natural disaster strikes, the people of our country have a right to have a response from us, and a response that is quick and appropriate. That is why I hope that we can do that with this legislation, and why it is hard to understand why anyone would want to throw up an obstacle to the very quickest response to the needs of the American people. That obstacle is in the form, in this legislation, of having in order the Gekas amendment. President Clinton has rightfully said that if the Gekas [[Page H2709]] amendment is included in this bill, that he would veto the bill. So I urge my colleagues, when it comes time to vote on the Gekas amendment, to vote against it. Who wins under the Gekas amendment? I think just the House Republicans, because this month's balanced budget agreement includes several new investments in education and other priorities for American families, but Republicans are hoping they can ignore those bipartisan commitments by ramming through this amendment, which would allow them to impose automatic $25 billion cuts in education and other priorities. If the Gekas amendment passes today, here is what could happen: 86,000 fewer children would be enrolled in Head Start, 360,000 fewer students would receive Pell grants for college or job training, 31,000 fewer students would get college work study jobs. If you are a veteran you should be concerned, because 60,000 veterans could be denied medical care, 66,000 people would lose job training and job placement. The list goes on and on. If you are concerned about the environment, the cleanup of 900 toxic waste sites could be delayed, 500,000 fewer at-risk pregnant women and children would get milk, cereal, and other foods. We will be debating that under the WIC provision that our colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], is proposing. It is hard to understand how the Republican majority rejected the WIC funding. It is hard to understand why they would allow the Gekas amendment to stand in the way of the quickest possible aid to people suffering from disaster in America. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Quinn]. Mr. QUINN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in support of the amendment today. Our amendment adds $38 million to the supplemental food program for nutritionally at-risk pregnant women, infants, and children under the age of 5. We propose to take unused dollars from a NASA wind tunnel project to offset the cost of the additional dollars. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the interest from Members on both sides of the aisle. If we do not include these funds, 180,000 women, infants, and children will be removed from the program. Because of an increased need, food price inflation, along with an underestimated caseload for fiscal year 1997, a serious reduction of women, infants, and children served through the WIC Program this year is inescapable. The WIC participation for 1996 fiscal year exceeded the initial projection by 100,000 women, infants, and children. Innocent children are facing unique and challenging circumstances at this time. We should be there to help them. For instance, the flooding in North Dakota has caused 3,000 additional caseloads with the WIC Program. There has been some controversy surrounding our request for these additional funds, there is no question. However, if we cannot continue to serve these people who need our help, who are experiencing temporary difficulty with maintaining a healthful diet at their most critical time of growth and development, if we cannot do this, we are essentially cutting the program. WIC is a well-managed program that would put these additional dollars, I believe and others believe, to efficient use. In fact, it includes the most successful cost-containment system of any Federal health-related program. We all know, and it has been justified, it has been talked about, that for every dollar WIC spends on prenatal care, we save $3.50 spent on Medicaid. WIC is one Federal program that I believe and others do that is truly deserving, and it delivers what it promises to the American taxpayer. Medical evidence shows that the WIC Program reduces low birthweight, infant mortality, and child anemia. This amendment is proof that we can do what we want when we work from both sides of the aisle. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek]. Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations for yielding me the time, and also the chairman, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. Mr. Chairman, I stand to lend my support to the bill as reported by the committee, and I want to thank them for their skill and sensitivity in bringing this before the floor. On behalf of myself and my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Diaz-Balart, the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Clay Shaw, and the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Patrick Kennedy, our amendment, which has been allowed as a part of this particular exercise here this morning, it takes through the fiscal year the cutoff of SSI income and Medicaid checks to legal immigrants, including refugees and asylees. This delay will give Congress a chance, Mr. Chairman, to agree on a permanent solution to help and assist these vulnerable people. Our amendment provides an offsetting rescission in budget authority that will allow us to do this, so that when Congress takes its recess, these very worthy legal immigrants will continue to receive their benefits. Our amendment, which they have been so helpful in letting us offer this morning, is identical to the one that has already been passed by the Senate on May 7. We all know that the Social Security Administration has sent out over 800,000 letters to people letting them know they may or may not have a cutoff of their benefits. We know they have let them know, and this has caused quite a bit of consternation with the many people who received them. But now, because of the sensitivity of this Congress and because of this supplemental bill, we will hopefully, with our amendment, be allowed to help these people. This cutoff was required by the welfare law that was enacted last year. SSI checks, as we know, they go to needy people, they go to aged and frail people and disabled people. They are the most vulnerable people in our society. These people, most of them are over 64 years of age, blind or disabled, and certainly this Congress does not want to see their SSI cut off. We want to thank this Congress, Mr. Chairman, for this wonderful act. {time} 1315 Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 30 seconds. I would simply like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Florida. The history of this provision is that when we first marked up the supplemental in the Committee on Appropriations, the gentlewoman from Florida tried to offer an amendment which would have provided for a long-term extension of the restoration of the benefits that this amendment covers. She understood fully that it was not the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations, and she understood why the gentleman from Louisiana and I had to oppose that amendment. But she then offered this amendment in committee which would provide in essence for a 1-month bridge so that we would not have people lose their benefits in August, be out of benefits for a month, only to then have them resume if the budget agreement passes which restores these benefits. So she agreed to withhold offering that amendment in committee, so long as her right to offer this amendment was protected on the floor, as in fact now has occurred. I simply want to say that this is the responsible way to approach this problem. It would be ludicrous for these people to be bounced off the rolls for one month and then go back on. I appreciate her commitment on the issue. That is why this matter is before us today. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that I agree with everything that the gentleman from Wisconsin has just said but would add that this amendment became necessary because of a shortfall created in the welfare reform program. I want to say that I totally agree with, concur with and support the welfare reform activities that this Congress entered into in the 104th Congress. But when we reduced welfare, in effect we created savings in the entitlement side of the equation or the mandatory portion of the budget, and now we are making up for the differential out of the discretionary portion of the budget. For the average person throughout America, they do not know the difference between mandatory spending [[Page H2710]] and discretionary spending, and they do not care and they need not care. It does not matter to them. But for us who have to work with the numbers day in and day out, we know that we are making great gains in the discretionary portion of the budget pie, saving the American taxpayers money, and we are not making significant or we made less gains on the entitlement side. Hopefully with this budget agreement we will make significantly more gains. But it just seems unfortunate that we have to make up for the shortfall on the discretionary side of the budget that was created on the entitlement side of the budget recognizing that what I just said is inside-the-Beltway jargon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], the very distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislative. He did an outstanding job previously on the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], for the terrific job that he is doing under very difficult conditions. Mr. Chairman, I rise to discuss the intent of the provision included in this bill by the Committee on Appropriations that would place a 14- million acre limitation on the number of acres that could be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program in 1997. First of all, I want to make it clear that I am a strong supporter of the CRP program, and I support efforts to ensure a full 36-million acre enrollment. However, my purpose in placing this limitation language in the bill was to ensure that only the most environmentally sensitive land is enrolled in the CRP. USDA maintains that they plan on enrolling acreage that provides the greatest environmental benefit for the dollar spent. Our language merely was giving USDA breathing room to do the job right in accordance with the 1995 farm bill. Currently, over 75 percent of the acres enrolled in the CRP is concentrated in nine States. Much of this acreage was enrolled back in the mid-1980's, when the CRP program was a price support program. Our bill language was meant to ensure that the USDA did not re-enroll some of these highly productive lands when world stocks of grain are exceedingly low. Idling productive acres is not what Congress intended when it passed the farm bill last year. Taxpayer money should not be used to re-enroll productive lands in the CRP program. One of the problems with this new sign up is that this year's bidding occurred only 3 weeks after the new rules were finalized by USDA. This did not leave sufficient time for outreach to farmers who had not previously participated in the program. It is only reasonable to assume that most of the States need some time to disseminate information about the new program. Even more troubling to us was the fact that USDA policies on rental rates discouraged enrollments in the East and the West coastal regions while USDA administrative policies also discouraged Western rangeland from participating in the program. We also wanted to ensure that adequate CRP acreage was provided for the continuous enrollment of buffer strips which are perhaps the most effective way of controlling farm runoff. A final point is that tight Federal dollars must buy maximum conservation benefits. Our appropriations bill language was fiscally responsible in that it saved, in fiscal year 1998, $31 million, and in 1999, $177 million. These moneys could have been available to spend on other critical agricultural programs that we will not otherwise be able to fund at sufficient levels in the upcoming bills. I thank the chairman for yielding me the time on this important issue to express the intent of the CRP bill language. I look forward to continued work with the committee and with USDA to ensure that regional inequities in the administration's CRP program are addressed. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, let me simply say that I appreciate the gentleman's concern for his region. It is perfectly appropriate. I would simply say that I think there are many in Congress who have a different view of the provision in the bill at this point with respect to the CRP. It seems to me that on an emergency supplemental, we should not be making this kind of change in basic law. It insures to the detriment of a good many farmers in the upper Midwest. I trust that at the time it will be properly stricken on a point of order. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. OBEY. I yield to the gentleman from New York. Mr. WALSH. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman is correct. We are concerned in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest and the far West that all of the acres will be enrolled within this year in one section of the country. This was meant to be a national program. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is a national program. it should be allowed to proceed the way the department and farmers expected it to. If other regions of the country are behind, I suspect over time that will be a self-correcting phenomenon. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute and 15 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Boswell]. (Mr. BOSWELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I rise in support of this emergency supplemental appropriations bill. As many of my colleagues have done, I, too, have been an appropriations person in another life. I realize there is a temptation for Members on supplementals to want to do other things. But I want to remind my colleagues that the intended target of this funding would be the people affected by the flooding which has devastated parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and California. We need to help our neighbors in their time of need, and it is the right thing to do. Nearly 4 years ago my State of Iowa suffered from the great flood of 1993, a 500-year flood. I remember the assistance the Federal Government provided us in our communities in our time of great need. There may be provisions in this massive funding bill that we may find objectionable; that will always be the case. But please do not derail this because of wanting to attach to a supplemental something that would actually delay the needed relief. I ask my colleagues to join me in extending a neighborly helping hand to the affected States and provide them with the help they need to improve their situation. Anyone who has been through a devastational flood can attest it takes time, money, and a lot of sweat and hard work to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Let us provide one part of that equation by adopting this emergency funding bill. It only makes sense. Hopefully, no amendments will be adopted that will cause a veto or delay this much needed assistance. We owe it to our neighbors. Let us pass this and get this help to them right away. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the great gentleman from the Great State of Washington [Mr. Nethercutt], a great member of the Committee on Appropriations. Mr. NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the great chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his great introduction. Mr. Speaker, I am here pleased to support the work of the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations and working with the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], to bring to the Congress, to the House, a wonderful effort to meet the needs of the flood victims of last year. It is absolutely critical that we pass this bill today, and I totally support it. I also appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh], my colleague who was here a moment ago, speaking with regard to CRP. I want my colleagues to understand that, as a member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies of the Committee on Appropriations, we really resisted the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] to cap CRP, Conservation Reserve Program, acres at 14 million acres. We want it to [[Page H2711]] be the 19 million acres that are intended to be enrolled in 1997. This is supported by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture. It is supported by people who care deeply about agriculture across this country, not the least of whom are in my own district, the Fifth District of the State of Washington. CRP is a great program. We should not fool with it in an appropriations bill, especially an emergency supplemental appropriations bill. I happened to be pleased to join with the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture today in raising a point of order to have the cap lifted and the language that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] was able to insert in the subcommittee and full committee and have that language removed from the bill, because it is bad policy on an emergency supplemental. It is also bad policy for agriculture. The Conservation Reserve Program helps habitat, it helps the environment, it helps agriculture, it does all of those things for the good of the Nation. The program has been fairly distributed. I am happy to work with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and anybody else to get the Department of Agriculture to enroll acres that are properly to be enrolled, highly erodible acreage. So I will offer this point of order with the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. Smith] today, and I urge the support of my colleagues. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Minge]. (Mr. MINGE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. MINGE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the bill that is under consideration and the Thune amendment. The area of Minnesota which I represent is one of the hardest hit by this spring's flooding. The work, the spirit of the local officials, the residents, the volunteers, State and local officers, and others have prevailed in our area's recovery. This is a tribute to all of this hard work. I also wish to signal my support for the Smith point of order that would strike the limitation on the Conservation Reserve Program. This is an important program for our country. It ought to be allowed to move ahead as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is implementing it. I rise today to commend the community leaders, volunteers, and public servants of flood ravaged communities along the Minnesota River. The flooded communities in my district will begin to put their lives back together with the passage of the fiscal year 1997 emergency supplemental appropriations bill before the House today. From treacherous November windstorms, to unprecedented January snowstorms, to the flood of the century, Minnesota weather has certainly tested our wills. Cleanup and recovery efforts from the floods have just begun. I have held numerous town meetings in flood- ravaged areas along the Minnesota River, and I have seen that, in the true Minnesota spirit, folks are moving on with their lives with their heads held high. The passage of this bill today is a long-awaited, important step toward recovery. This disaster experience has summoned an unprecedented level of commitment from all levels of government starting at the local level. Mayor Jim Curtis and City Manager Jim Norman of my hometown of Montevideo, as well as Granite Falls' Mayor Dave Smiglewski and City Manager Bill Lavin; Dawson's Mayor Al Schacherer and City Manager David Bovee; Redwood Falls Mayor Sara Triplett and City Manager Jeff Weldon; New Ulm's Mayor Bert Schapekahm and City Manager Richard Salvati; St. Peter's Mayor Jerry Hawbacker and Daniel Jordet; Morton's Mayor David Mude and City Clerk Shirley Dove; Appleton's Mayor Hugo ``Bob'' Roggatz and Coordinator Robert Thompson; Ortonville's Mayor David Ellingson and Clerk Administrator John Jenkins; and Beardsley's Mayor Glenn Burgess; Boyd's Mayor Gary Steinke and Clerk Karen Schmitt; Clara City Mayor Todd Prekker; Maynard's Mayor Richard Groothuis; and Odessa's Mayor Donald Teske, along with numerous county commissioners and emergency management officials, are just a few of the many community leaders who showed remarkable courage and perseverance when their communities were under crisis. The Federal Government worked together with these officials as well. When our region was devastated with drastic winter storms, Federal employees from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] were on hand to assess the damage of our public roads, buildings, and utilities. Other employees worked efficiently to open roads after unprecedented winter snowfall. During the flooding of the Minnesota and Red Rivers, FEMA employees were immediately disseminating information and helping flood victims get back on their feet. I even heard from several of our local county officials that FEMA responded so quickly, local officials had to speed up their assessment of the damage so that the Federal employees could proceed with their response. These are but a few examples of good government and cooperation we have witnessed throughout this disaster. City mayors to local emergency teams, to county and State representatives, to Federal officials have demonstrated that government can be effective. I am pleased that the Speaker recognized the extent of the damage in our area and vowed his assistance. According to Minnesota Gov. Arne Carlson's office, the Speaker has promised Minnesota Federal reimbursement aid at 90 percent when that level is accorded to the States of North Dakota and South Dakota. This would allow the Federal Government to cover 90 percent of the costs while the State and local governments would be responsible for 10 percent. Minnesota's counties who were ravaged by the unprecedented floods should not be excluded from this reimbursement ratio that recognizes the severity of the damage, and I commend the Speaker for lending his support to Minnesota. I would also like to voice my strong support for the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's] in the supplemental appropriations bill. After consultations with the FEMA and local officials in Minnesota, I agree that CDBG's will effectively serve flood victims and I urge my colleagues to support Representative Thune's amendment that provides the inclusion of Community Development Block Grants [CDBG's]. This is the best way for the Federal Government to quickly and efficiently aid flood victims and restore our devastated communities to economic vitality. Unfortunately, this bill came before the House with several extraneous provisions and its consideration was delayed because of several superfluous additions. I was disappointed that the bill was not brought to the floor as a clean, emergency appropriations bill. The extraneous provisions took the focus away from providing aid to the victims of the flood. I am pleased, however, that the Speaker allowed my colleague, Representative Ray LaHood and I to bring forward an amendment to strike one of the extraneous provisions. The bill called for a cap on enrollment of the Conservation Reserve Program [C.R.P.]. The C.R.P. has enabled Minnesota to protect environmentally-sensitive land and has revitalized the wildlife habitat in our region. Our amendment would maintain C.R.P. enrollment at the current level and allow farmers and landowners to continue to take advantage of this popular, efficient, conservation program. I urge my colleagues to recognize the urgency of our situation in Minnesota and allow the House to come to the aid of the flood victims in the Midwest immediately. The passage of this bill will enable local governments to continue to help the people in their flood-ravaged communities put their lives back together. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I am in a similar position as the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston]. I had seven Members who desperately wanted to speak, none of whom are now here. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Pastor]. (Mr. PASTOR asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. PASTOR. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking member for bringing this bill to the House so we can help and assist the flood victims and also provide more financial aid to the troops in Bosnia. There are two issues that I would like the House Members support. One issue deals with WIC. As you know, it should be the objective of this House to fully fund WIC. In my former political life as a county board supervisor and being in charge of an indigent hospital, we would see that women who came in and were enrolled in the WIC Program delivered children that were healthy and probably the children would have a better life of quality, where women who were not enrolled in the WIC Program delivered a low-weight baby and we found the children would experience problems. {time} 1330 So it makes good sense to support WIC because it is humane and also it will save costs in the future. [[Page H2712]] The second issue that I would ask support for deals with the Diaz- Balart-Meek amendment, and this is to extend the social services that will be denied to legal immigrants. What is happening today, Mr. Speaker, is that legal immigrants, people who have lived in this country for many years, have raised their children, have paid their taxes, and because of the new welfare reform legislation, will be denied social services. Many legal immigrants today are receiving notices that they will no longer receive social services due to their status of not being citizens. That is causing a lot of problems, especially to the elderly; people who are in nursing homes, people who need the assistance of food stamps because they are not making enough on their pensions, and also young people will be affected. So I would ask the Members to support the Meek amendment. All it does is extend the services until the end of the fiscal year so that the people will continue to receive services and, once we pass the budget, hopefully all those services will be restored to the legal immigrants. Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. I would just take a minute to say that this is an important bill. The President initially requested about $2 billion for disaster relief for people devastated in California and various other States, and then the incredible flooding of the Dakotas and Minnesota occurred in the interim. All of these people, not only in those States I have mentioned, but all told in some 35 States, have suffered the ill effects of terrible weather and the tremendous adversity of nature. Unfortunately, in recent years, the American taxpayer has become the insurer of last resort. So it seems that year after year we have to come up with these supplemental appropriations bills to deal with this devastation. We are happy to do that. We want to make sure that we try to repair some of the damage. There is no way on God's green Earth we will be able to repair all of the damage but, at the same time, we owe the taxpayer the responsibility to make sure that the money is spent wisely; that it is not wasted; that it is simply not just thrown at the problem. In addition to the disaster relief, President Clinton, of course, has detailed troops to Bosnia and to Haiti and other places throughout the world and those expeditions have exceeded their budget and have exceeded the money previously appropriated to the Defense Department, and so we have to pay for those ventures. Unless we, at some point, pull our troops out of those places, that expense goes on from day to day. We cannot simply tell our troops to go out and do the job, but we will not pay for it. So it is important, I think, that we pass this bill, that we pay for the troops, that we pay for the devastation, but that we offset it within the existing budget. We have done that in this bill. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. LIVINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California. Mr. LEWIS of California. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's yielding. I wanted to mention for the Record that there are a number of colleagues who will have colloquies with myself regarding some items on the emergency side of this bill. There are some complicated difficulties we are having on housing programs. I want my colleagues to know that we are very aware of those circumstances and plan to work with our colleagues. In view of the fact that many were not able to be here at this moment, I would suggest that the gentleman has done fabulous work on this bill, I congratulate him for his efforts, and certainly those people facing disasters across the country owe him a good deal of gratitude. Mr. LIVINGSTON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I want to say this is a bipartisan bill. We have gotten this far in joint agreement because Members across this House of Representatives, working in tandem with the other body, have decided that these items must be paid for, and yet we have also joined forces to make sure that we find the budget authority within our previously appropriated items to offset the increased costs. So right now there are no additional costs to the U.S. taxpayer for what is spent in this bill. I think that makes it a reasonable bill, a bill that meets the demands of the American people and a bill that should be passed with as few amendments as absolutely possible. I do hope that we can get this bill passed without undue political wrangling, that we can put it on the President's desk and that we can get his signature within the next few days, certainly before we leave on the Memorial Day recess. In fact, I would encourage all of our Members on both sides of the aisle and the leadership to make sure they do everything possible to assure that this bill becomes law before the Memorial Day recess. Mr. McINTYRE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to announce my support for H.R. 1469, the supplemental appropriations bill for fiscal year 1997. Included in this bill are several compon